The inference chip startup more than doubled its valuation from $2.6 billion in late 2024 and plans to remain independent.

Tenstorrent raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation. The 10-year-old chip startup focuses on inference and plans to use the new capital to scale chips tailored for serving open-weight AI models and video generation. The round more than doubled Tenstorrent’s valuation from $2.6 billion in late 2024.

Trace Capital, a new firm launched by Quiet Capital co-founder Ben Mahdavi, and Innovation X led the round. Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity, SanDisk, and T. Rowe Price also backed Tenstorrent. The raise came five months after Intel and Qualcomm reportedly showed acquisition interest at valuations as high as $5 billion. CEO Jim Keller said Tenstorrent chose independence after its Galaxy servers ran DeepSeek models.

For builders and operators, Tenstorrent’s raise adds a capital-backed alternative for inference hardware tuned to open-weight models and video generation. More suppliers can reduce dependence on Nvidia for serving workloads and give teams another platform to evaluate as open-weight model use grows.

Tenstorrent belongs to a wave of AI hardware startups trying to chip away at Nvidia’s dominance. Etched, another AI chip maker, was fielding investment offers at valuations of $40 billion or more, TechCrunch reported earlier this month. The next test for Tenstorrent is converting new capital into production capacity and customer wins for inference workloads.

What matters

• Tenstorrent raised $1.5 billion led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, with Fidelity participating.
• Builders gain another funded supplier for inference chips aimed at open-weight models and video generation.
• Watch whether Tenstorrent converts new capital into production capacity and customer wins against Nvidia.

Why it matters

Watch whether Tenstorrent converts new capital into production capacity and customer wins against Nvidia.

This GenAI News article was prepared in original wording using reporting and materials published by TechCrunch AI. Source reference: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/19/tenstorrent-hits-6-2b-valuation-to-scale-open-weight-ai-chips/.

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