All the fundraising deals in the AI chip market (from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026)
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Between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, startups in the AI chip market raised over $7 billion across 19 publicly disclosed deals.
Most of that capital went to companies building inference accelerators, which are chips designed to run trained AI models quickly and cheaply in data centers.
The biggest fundraising quarters were Q3 2025 and Q4 2025, driven by billion-dollar rounds from Cerebras Systems, Moore Threads, and Groq.
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Insights
- Inference accelerators captured $2.8 billion across 12 deals, making inference-focused AI chips the single largest category by both deal count and dollars raised.
- Positron raised three separate rounds in just 12 months (from $23.5M to $230M), showing how fast successful AI chip startups burn through funding checkpoints.
- Q1 2026 was the most balanced quarter: the top deal represented only 22.6% of total AI chip funding, compared to 47.8% in Q3 2025.
- China's AI chip market dominated Q4 2025 thanks to three IPOs (Moore Threads, MetaX, and Tsing Micro) that together raised over $2 billion.
- Photonic AI chip startups Arago and Neurophos raised a combined $136 million, signaling growing investor interest in light-based inference alternatives to traditional silicon.
- South Korean AI chip startups Rebellions and FuriosaAI raised a combined $775 million across three rounds, making South Korea the second-largest country by private capital after the United States.
- Not a single deal in this dataset fell below $23 million, and zero deals were under $2 million, suggesting the AI chip market has moved past the seed-stage experimentation phase.
- Atreides Management and Valor Equity Partners each appeared in four deals, making them the most active repeat investors in the AI chip market during this period.
- The average deal size in Q4 2025 reached $571 million, heavily skewed by two Chinese IPOs that each exceeded $500 million.
- Every single company in the dataset cited manufacturing scale-up or commercial deployment as a reason for raising, rather than early R&D, which points to a maturing AI chip market.
- European AI chip startups VSORA and Arago raised meaningful rounds ($46M and $26M), but their combined total is smaller than any single top-10 deal in the dataset.
In our AI chip market deck, we will give you useful market maps and grids
Summary table of the funding deals in the AI chip market (last 5 quarters)
We define the AI chip market as data-center accelerators whose primary purpose is to run AI workloads (training and inference).
We include GPUs, TPUs, and other AI accelerators/ASICs sold for deployment in servers used to train or serve machine-learning models.
We exclude general-purpose CPUs, networking and memory components, and endpoint/edge chips in phones, PCs, cars, and IoT devices.
You can also read our detailed analysis to understand how funding activity in the AI chip market has evolved over the last few years.
Also, you should know that we have a dedicated page, updated weekly, with all the latest fundraising deals in the AI chip market.
| Name | What they do | Amount ($M) | Quarter | Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positron | Builds energy-efficient AI inference chips and servers for U.S. data centers | $23.5M | Q1 2025 | Business Wire |
| VSORA | Designs high-performance AI inference chips for servers, based in France | $46M | Q2 2025 | VSORA |
| Biren Technology | Develops GPU chips for AI training and inference in Chinese data centers | $207M | Q2 2025 | Reuters |
| Arago | Builds photonic AI inference chips that use light to cut power consumption | $26M | Q3 2025 | Tech Funding News |
| Positron | AI inference servers and chips for data-center deployment (Series A) | $51.6M | Q3 2025 | Business Wire |
| FuriosaAI | Makes data-center AI inference chips and cards, headquartered in South Korea | $125M | Q3 2025 | FuriosaAI |
| Groq | Builds ultra-fast AI inference processors and cloud infrastructure for serving models | $750M | Q3 2025 | Groq |
| Rebellions | Develops AI inference chips for large-scale data centers, based in South Korea | $250M | Q3 2025 | Rebellions |
| Cerebras Systems | Makes wafer-scale AI processors for training and inference in data centers | $1,100M | Q3 2025 | Cerebras |
| d-Matrix | Builds inference accelerators for generative AI workloads in data centers | $275M | Q4 2025 | d-Matrix |
| Tsing Micro | Develops reconfigurable AI accelerators for computing systems in China | $283M | Q4 2025 | World News |
| MetaX | Designs GPU chips for AI and cloud data-center workloads in China | $596M | Q4 2025 | SCMP |
| Moore Threads | Develops GPU chips for AI training, inference, and graphics in Chinese data centers | $1,130M | Q4 2025 | Bloomberg |
| Etched | Builds server chips optimized specifically for transformer-model AI inference | $500M | Q1 2026 | Tech Funding News |
| Iluvatar CoreX | Makes general-purpose GPUs for AI training and inference in Chinese cloud data centers | $475M | Q1 2026 | SCMP |
| Neurophos | Builds photonic AI inference processors as GPU alternatives for data centers | $110M | Q1 2026 | PR Newswire |
| Positron | AI inference chips and systems for server deployment (Series B) | $230M | Q1 2026 | Business Wire |
| MatX | Builds chips optimized for large-language-model training and inference | $500M | Q1 2026 | TechCrunch |
| Rebellions | AI inference chips and rack-scale systems for data centers (pre-IPO round) | $400M | Q1 2026 | Rebellions |
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How has funding activity in the AI chip market changed over time?
Q3 2025 was the most active quarter for AI chip funding, with $2.3 billion raised across six deals, largely because Cerebras Systems alone closed a $1.1 billion Series G and Groq added $750 million.
Q1 2025 was the quietest quarter, with just one deal (Positron's $23.5 million round), as the AI chip market had not yet entered its fundraising surge.
Total AI chip funding in Q1 2026 reached $2.2 billion, which is roughly flat compared to Q4 2025 ($2.3 billion, a -3% change), but a massive increase compared to Q1 2025 ($23.5 million), representing a roughly 9,300% year-over-year jump.
If you strip out the top two deals each quarter, the pattern still shows steady growth: Q3 2025 drops from $2.3 billion to about $453 million, Q4 2025 drops from $2.3 billion to about $558 million, and Q1 2026 drops from $2.2 billion to about $740 million, meaning the "long tail" of smaller AI chip deals has been getting stronger over time.
| Quarter | Number of deals | Total raised ($) | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2025 | 1 | $24M | A quiet start with only Positron's seed round on the board. |
| Q2 2025 | 2 | $253M | Biren Technology's $207M pre-IPO round drove most of this quarter's AI chip funding. |
| Q3 2025 | 6 | $2,303M | Cerebras ($1.1B) and Groq ($750M) made Q3 the biggest quarter for AI chip deals. |
| Q4 2025 | 4 | $2,284M | Three Chinese AI chip IPOs (Moore Threads, MetaX, Tsing Micro) dominated this quarter. |
| Q1 2026 | 6 | $2,215M | Capital spread more evenly, with six deals and no single company above $500M. |
| All quarters | 19 | $7,078M | Over $7 billion raised across 19 AI chip deals in five quarters. |
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Which startups in the AI chip market raised the largest rounds over the last months?
These startups raised the most recently in the AI chip market:
- Moore Threads raised $1.13 billion through a Shanghai IPO, as the Chinese AI chip maker needed public-market capital to fund next-generation GPU development and compete domestically.
- Cerebras Systems raised $1.1 billion in a Series G to expand manufacturing and data-center capacity for its wafer-scale AI processors, which are used for both training and inference.
- Groq raised $750 million because demand for fast AI inference was spiking, and Groq needed capital to scale its global infrastructure across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
- MetaX raised about $596 million through a Shanghai IPO to fund GPU product development and grow its data-center compute platform in China.
- Etched raised about $500 million to accelerate production of its transformer-specific inference chip, targeting a $5 billion valuation.
- MatX raised about $500 million in a Series B to finish developing and manufacturing its LLM-optimized AI chip for data centers.
- Iluvatar CoreX targeted $475 million in a Hong Kong IPO to expand its domestic AI GPU platform and support large-scale commercialization.
- Rebellions raised $400 million in a pre-IPO round to scale globally with its RebelRack and RebelPOD systems ahead of a likely public listing.
- Tsing Micro raised over $283 million in a state-backed Series C to expand production of its reconfigurable AI accelerator stack in China.
- d-Matrix raised $275 million in a Series C to scale deployments of its Corsair inference platform and expand into global markets.
And, yes, we do cover most of them in our our beautiful pitch about the AI chip market.
You may also want to check our ranking of the most funded startups in the AI chip market as well as our list of the most valued startups.
In our AI chip market deck, we answer all the common questions from investors and entrepreneurs
Is the AI chip market shifting toward smaller or bigger deals?
Across all five quarters, the overall average deal size in the AI chip market was about $373 million, reflecting the dominance of mega-rounds and IPOs over smaller venture-stage raises.
Quarter by quarter, the average AI chip deal size rose from $23.5 million in Q1 2025 to $571 million in Q4 2025, before dropping back to $369 million in Q1 2026. The Q4 2025 spike happened because two Chinese IPOs (Moore Threads at $1.13B and MetaX at $596M) pushed the average way up.
If you remove the top one or two outlier deals from each quarter, the average AI chip deal size stays in a much tighter range of roughly $50M to $150M, which suggests the core venture market is growing steadily rather than ballooning wildly.
| Quarter | Number of deals | Average deal size ($) | Deals below $2M | Deals above $50M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2025 | 1 | $24M | 0 | 0 |
| Q2 2025 | 2 | $127M | 0 | 1 |
| Q3 2025 | 6 | $384M | 0 | 5 |
| Q4 2025 | 4 | $571M | 0 | 4 |
| Q1 2026 | 6 | $369M | 0 | 6 |
| All quarters | 19 | $373M | 0 | 16 |
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How concentrated was funding activity in the AI chip market?
In Q3 2025, the single largest AI chip deal (Cerebras at $1.1 billion) represented 47.8% of that quarter's total funding, and the top three deals captured 91.2%. By Q1 2026, the top deal was only 22.6% and the top three together were 66.6%, which shows capital is spreading across more credible AI chip contenders.
This declining concentration in AI chip funding is a healthy sign for the market. When the top three deals go from controlling over 90% to about two-thirds of quarterly capital, it means investors see multiple viable companies rather than just one or two clear winners.
| Quarter | Number of deals | % by Top 1 | % by Top 3 | % by Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2025 | 1 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| Q2 2025 | 2 | 81.8% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| Q3 2025 | 6 | 47.8% | 91.2% | 100.0% |
| Q4 2025 | 4 | 49.5% | 88.0% | 100.0% |
| Q1 2026 | 6 | 22.6% | 66.6% | 100.0% |
| All quarters | 19 | 16.0% | 42.1% | 100.0% |
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Which categories in the AI chip market received the most funding?
Inference accelerators and ASICs were the top-funded category in the AI chip market, capturing $2.8 billion across 12 deals (about 39% of total funding). Inference-focused chips attracted the most deals because AI companies urgently need cheaper, faster ways to serve trained models to millions of users in production.
Training and inference GPUs came second with $2.4 billion across four deals (about 34% of total funding). This category was dominated by Chinese GPU makers like Moore Threads, MetaX, Biren Technology, and Iluvatar CoreX, which are building domestic alternatives to restricted Western chips.
Training and inference processors ranked third at $1.6 billion across two deals (about 23% of total funding). Cerebras Systems alone accounted for $1.1 billion of that total, making this category highly concentrated around one major player, with MatX adding $500 million.
| Category | Number of deals | Total raised ($) | Startups and amounts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inference accelerators / ASICs | 12 | $2,787M | Positron ($23.5M + $51.6M + $230M), VSORA ($46M), Arago ($26M), FuriosaAI ($125M), Groq ($750M), Rebellions ($250M + $400M), d-Matrix ($275M), Neurophos ($110M), Etched ($500M) |
| Training / inference GPUs | 4 | $2,408M | Biren Technology ($207M), MetaX ($596M), Moore Threads ($1,130M), Iluvatar CoreX ($475M) |
| Training / inference processors | 2 | $1,600M | Cerebras Systems ($1,100M), MatX ($500M) |
In our AI chip market deck, we cover the latest tech updates shaping the market
Who are the biggest investors in the AI chip market?
Atreides Management was the most active investor in the AI chip market during this period, appearing in four deals across Positron (three rounds) and Cerebras Systems. Atreides Management's repeated bets on Positron and its participation in Cerebras's $1.1B round show a strong conviction in both inference ASICs and wafer-scale processors.
Valor Equity Partners also appeared in four deals, backing Positron through all three of its rounds and co-investing alongside Atreides in the Cerebras Systems mega-round. Valor Equity Partners seems to be building a concentrated AI chip portfolio focused on U.S.-based hardware companies.
Flume Ventures participated in three Positron rounds, making Flume Ventures one of the most loyal backers of a single AI chip startup in the dataset. Resilience Reserve followed the same pattern, also appearing in all three Positron rounds.
Qatar Investment Authority appeared in two deals (d-Matrix and Positron), showing that Middle Eastern sovereign wealth is actively investing in the AI chip market. Korea Development Bank also backed two startups (FuriosaAI and Rebellions), reflecting South Korea's national strategy to build a domestic AI chip ecosystem.
M12 (Microsoft's venture fund) invested in both d-Matrix and Neurophos, signaling Microsoft's interest in diversifying beyond NVIDIA for AI inference hardware. Mirae Asset Financial Group appeared in d-Matrix and Rebellions, combining AI chip bets across the U.S. and South Korea.
1517 Fund invested in two Positron rounds, while Unless also joined two Positron deals including co-leading the Series B.
Disclaimer: this investor list may be incomplete; we focus on publicly disclosed lead and prominent recurring investors, so some frequent minority participants may be underrepresented. "Total funded" does not represent the amount personally invested by an individual investor. Instead, it refers to the aggregate amount raised across all fundraising rounds in which the investor participated.
| Investor | Number of deals | Total funded ($) | Startups |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atreides Management | 4 | $1,405M | Positron (Q1 2025, Q3 2025, Q1 2026), Cerebras Systems |
| Valor Equity Partners | 4 | $1,405M | Positron (Q1 2025, Q3 2025, Q1 2026), Cerebras Systems |
| Flume Ventures | 3 | $305M | Positron (Q1 2025, Q3 2025, Q1 2026) |
| Resilience Reserve | 3 | $305M | Positron (Q1 2025, Q3 2025, Q1 2026) |
| 1517 Fund | 2 | $282M | Positron (Q3 2025, Q1 2026) |
| Unless | 2 | $282M | Positron (Q3 2025, Q1 2026) |
| Qatar Investment Authority | 2 | $505M | d-Matrix, Positron (Q1 2026) |
| Korea Development Bank | 2 | $375M | FuriosaAI, Rebellions (Q3 2025) |
| M12 | 2 | $385M | d-Matrix, Neurophos |
| Mirae Asset Financial Group | 2 | $675M | d-Matrix, Rebellions (Q1 2026) |
In our AI chip market deck, we track adoption trends and shifts in consumer behavior
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