What are the fundraising trends in the AI chip market?
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The AI chip market has grown from $822 million in funding in 2022 to over $5.2 billion in 2025, a 6x surge in just three years.
This explosive growth reflects a global race to build alternatives to NVIDIA's dominance in data center AI computing, fueled by Chinese IPOs, American mega-rounds, and rising South Korean chipmakers.
Across 48 deals and nearly $9.7 billion in total equity funding from 2022 to 2025, the AI chip market has become one of the fastest-scaling sectors in deep tech.
And if you want to better understand this new industry, you can download our pitch covering the AI chip market.
Insights
- AI chip market funding grew 6x in three years, from $822 million in 2022 to $5.2 billion in 2025, making it one of the fastest-scaling venture categories in deep tech.
- Not a single AI chip funding round fell below $2 million across all 48 deals from 2022 to 2025, reflecting the extreme capital intensity required to design and manufacture custom silicon.
- Chinese AI GPU companies raised over $3.5 billion through IPOs in Q4 2025 alone, more than the entire global AI chip market raised during all of 2024.
- Samsung participated in 6 AI chip funding rounds across four years, backing startups in the US, Europe, South Korea, and Canada, making it the most geographically diversified corporate investor in AI chips.
- Inference-focused AI chip startups captured 14 of 16 deals in 2025, signaling that the industry sees running AI models at scale as a bigger long-term opportunity than training them.
- South Korea produced four pure-play AI chip startups (Rebellions, Sapeon, HyperAccel, FuriosaAI), with Rebellions alone raising $465 million across five rounds between 2022 and 2025.
- d-Matrix raised funding in three separate years (2022, 2023, 2025), totaling $429 million, making it the most consistently funded in-memory computing AI chip company globally.
- The top 3 deals captured between 56% and 82% of annual AI chip funding each year, showing that investment in this market is structurally concentrated around a few very large bets.
- The average AI chip deal size nearly quintupled from $69 million in 2022 to $327 million in 2025, as more companies moved from research to commercial production.
- Photonic AI chip companies (Lightmatter, Luminous Computing, Neurophos, Arago) raised $447 million across five deals, but no single photonic startup has yet closed a round above $200 million.
First, how do we define the AI chip market?
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.
This is also the definition we use in our pitch about the AI chip market.
In our AI chip market deck, we have designed useful charts to give you full market clarity
How has funding activity in the AI chip market changed over time?
2025 was the most active year for the AI chip market by far, with 16 deals raising $5.2 billion, driven by a wave of Chinese GPU IPOs in Q4 and US mega-rounds from Cerebras ($1.1 billion) and Groq ($750 million).
2023 was the quietest year, with just 9 deals totaling $1.1 billion, as investors paused between the post-2021 cooldown and the generative AI infrastructure buildout that took off in 2024.
Total AI chip market funding in 2025 was up 105% compared to 2024 ($2.6 billion), up 397% compared to 2023 ($1.1 billion), and up 536% compared to 2022 ($822 million).
Even if you remove the two largest deals each year, the remaining AI chip funding still grew from about $460 million in 2022 to over $3 billion in 2025, showing that broad-based investment in AI chips is increasing well beyond just a handful of headline rounds.
If you're interested in this industry, please note that we regularly keep in touch and share funding updates for this market on this page, which we keep continuously updated.
We also make quarterly analyses of the funding activity in the AI chip market here.
| Year | Number of deals | Total raised | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 12 | $822M | Chinese GPU makers captured 62% of all AI chip funding, backed by state investors. The market was still pre-ChatGPT, with an average deal size of $69 million. |
| 2023 | 9 | $1,053M | Fewest deals of any year, but the average AI chip round jumped to $117 million. Investors consolidated bets on proven architectures like photonics and in-memory computing. |
| 2024 | 11 | $2,551M | Three mega-rounds (Moore Threads, Tenstorrent, Groq) captured 81% of all AI chip capital. Inference-optimized chips dominated the deal pipeline. |
| 2025 | 16 | $5,231M | Record year for the AI chip market, driven by four Chinese IPOs and US mega-rounds. 14 of 16 deals exceeded $50 million in size. |
In our AI chip market deck, we help you understand how the market is structured
Which startups in the AI chip market raised the largest rounds over the last few years?
These startups raised the most over the last years in the AI chip market:
- Cerebras Systems raised $1.1 billion in September 2025 to expand production of its wafer-scale AI processor, the largest chip ever made, as cloud providers raced to secure non-NVIDIA training capacity.
- Moore Threads raised $1.1 billion through its December 2025 STAR Market IPO, fueled by massive Chinese demand for domestic AI GPU alternatives as US export controls tightened further.
- Groq raised $750 million in September 2025 to deploy its Language Processing Units globally, offering ultra-fast AI inference speeds that attracted over 2 million developers to its cloud platform.
- Moore Threads raised $736 million in a Q4 2024 pre-IPO round backed by 38 investors, including DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, at a $3.5 billion valuation ahead of its public listing.
- Biren Technology raised $717 million through its December 2025 Hong Kong IPO, securing capital despite being placed on the US Entity List, thanks to strong support from state-backed investors.
- Tenstorrent raised $693 million in December 2024, backed by Jeff Bezos and Samsung, to scale its open-source RISC-V AI processors as an alternative to NVIDIA's proprietary ecosystem.
- Groq raised $640 million in August 2024, led by BlackRock, to deploy over 100,000 Language Processing Units and rapidly scale its inference-as-a-service cloud platform.
- MetaX raised $596 million through its December 2025 STAR Market IPO, joining the wave of Chinese AI GPU companies going public to fund next-generation chip development.
- Etched raised approximately $500 million in late 2025 to manufacture its Sohu chip at TSMC, betting that hardcoding transformer operations directly into silicon can outperform general-purpose GPUs.
- Iluvatar CoreX raised $475 million through its December 2025 Hong Kong IPO, directing 80% of proceeds toward R&D and commercialization of its cloud AI GPU solutions for Chinese data centers.
And, yes, we do cover most of them in our our beautiful pitch about the AI chip market.
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?
According to our own data, the average deal size in the AI chip market across all four years (2022 to 2025) was approximately $201 million, reflecting the high capital requirements of designing, manufacturing, and scaling custom AI silicon.
Breaking it down by year, the average AI chip deal size grew from $69 million in 2022 to $117 million in 2023, then to $232 million in 2024, and finally to $327 million in 2025. This steady increase reflects the maturing of the AI chip startup ecosystem, where more companies are reaching later stages of development and need larger rounds to fund mass production and commercialization.
Even excluding the top two outlier rounds each year, the average AI chip deal size still rose consistently, suggesting that the shift toward bigger deals is a structural trend in the AI chip market rather than just the effect of a few mega-rounds skewing the numbers.
| Year | Number of deals | Average deal size | Deals below $2M | Deals above $50M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 12 | $69M | 0 | 5 |
| 2023 | 9 | $117M | 0 | 5 |
| 2024 | 11 | $232M | 0 | 7 |
| 2025 | 16 | $327M | 0 | 14 |
| All years | 48 | $201M | 0 | 31 |
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How concentrated was funding activity in the AI chip market?
The AI chip market is structurally concentrated: in every single year from 2022 to 2025, the top 3 deals captured at least 56% of all capital, and in 2023 and 2024, the top 3 captured over 80%. This is typical for deep tech sectors where chip development requires hundreds of millions in upfront R&D before any revenue is generated.
That said, the AI chip market became slightly less concentrated over time. The share captured by the top 3 deals fell from 82% in 2023 to 56% in 2025, as the number of well-funded startups increased from 8 unique companies in 2023 to 15 in 2025, spreading capital across a broader set of AI chip players.
| Year | Number of deals | % by Top 1 | % by Top 3 | % by Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 12 | 26% | 63% | 96% |
| 2023 | 9 | 29% | 82% | 100% |
| 2024 | 11 | 29% | 81% | 100% |
| 2025 | 16 | 21% | 56% | 95% |
| All years | 48 | 11% | 31% | 76% |
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Which categories in the AI chip market received the most funding?
General-purpose AI GPUs captured the most funding in the AI chip market by a wide margin, raising roughly $4.9 billion across 11 deals from 2022 to 2025 (about 51% of all capital). Nearly all of this went to Chinese companies like Moore Threads, Biren Technology, MetaX, Iluvatar CoreX, and Enflame Technology, which are building domestic alternatives to NVIDIA with heavy backing from state funds and eventually IPOs on the STAR Market and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Custom AI inference accelerators came second, raising about $2.9 billion across 18 deals (roughly 30% of total AI chip funding). This is the most active category by deal count, reflecting the wide variety of architectural approaches being tried: Groq with its Language Processing Units, Etched with transformer-specific ASICs, Rebellions with NPUs, and many others all competing to make AI inference faster and cheaper at data center scale.
Multi-purpose AI processors for both training and inference raised about $2.1 billion across 4 deals (roughly 22% of total funding). This category is dominated by two companies: Cerebras Systems, whose wafer-scale processor is the largest AI chip ever made, and Tenstorrent, which uses open-source RISC-V architecture to challenge NVIDIA's proprietary lock-in. Tsing Micro from China also contributes with its reconfigurable accelerator architecture.
| Category | Number of deals | Total raised | Startups |
|---|---|---|---|
| General-purpose AI GPUs | 11 | ~$4.9B | Moore Threads ($2.1B), Biren Technology ($1.2B), MetaX ($745M), Iluvatar CoreX ($624M), Enflame Technology ($274M) |
| Custom AI inference accelerators | 18 | ~$2.9B | Groq ($1.4B), Etched ($625M), Rebellions ($465M), FuriosaAI ($125M), MatX ($80M), VSORA ($46M), Sapeon ($45M), HyperAccel ($40M), NeuReality ($20M), NEUCHIPS ($20M), EdgeCortix ($8M) |
| Multi-purpose AI processors (training + inference) | 4 | ~$2.1B | Cerebras Systems ($1.1B), Tenstorrent ($723M), Tsing Micro ($283M) |
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Who are the biggest investors in the AI chip market?
Samsung (through Samsung Catalyst Fund, Samsung Ventures, and Samsung Securities) is the most active corporate investor in the AI chip market, participating in 6 deals across four years, backing companies in the US, Europe, South Korea, and Canada, including Groq, Tenstorrent, Axelera AI, and Rebellions.
Mirae Asset (through Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, and Mirae Asset Ventures) participated in 6 AI chip deals, mostly focused on South Korean and US startups like Rebellions, d-Matrix, Sapeon, and HyperAccel, making Mirae Asset the most active financial investor in the Asian AI chip ecosystem.
Korea Development Bank backed 5 AI chip deals, supporting every major South Korean AI chip startup including Rebellions (three times), HyperAccel, and FuriosaAI, reflecting the Korean government's strategic push to build a domestic AI semiconductor industry.
Temasek (including through its subsidiary Pavilion Capital) participated in 4 AI chip rounds, leading or co-leading investments in both Rebellions and d-Matrix across multiple years, showing a consistent thesis around AI inference acceleration.
HongShan (formerly Sequoia China) backed at least 3 AI chip deals as a pre-IPO shareholder in major Chinese GPU companies Moore Threads, MetaX, and Iluvatar CoreX, positioning HongShan at the center of China's push for AI chip independence.
Fidelity Management & Research participated in 3 AI chip rounds, backing some of the largest deals in the market: Lightmatter ($154M), Tenstorrent ($693M), and Cerebras ($1.1B), totaling nearly $2 billion in AI chip funding rounds.
M12 (Microsoft Ventures) backed d-Matrix across all three of its funding rounds (2022, 2023, 2025), participating in $429 million in total AI chip funding and showing a long-term conviction in digital in-memory computing for AI inference.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung (various entities) | 6 | $2,514M | Groq (2024, 2025), Tenstorrent (2024), Axelera AI (2024), d-Matrix (2023), Rebellions (2025) |
| Mirae Asset (various entities) | 6 | $644M | Rebellions (2022, 2024), d-Matrix (2023, 2025), Sapeon (2023), HyperAccel (2024) |
| Korea Development Bank | 5 | $592M | Rebellions (2022, 2024, 2025), HyperAccel (2024), FuriosaAI (2025) |
| Temasek / Pavilion Capital | 4 | $559M | Rebellions (2022, 2024), d-Matrix (2023, 2025) |
| HongShan (Sequoia China) | 3 | $1,911M | Moore Threads (2022, 2025), MetaX (2025), Iluvatar CoreX (2024) |
| Fidelity | 3 | $1,947M | Lightmatter (2023), Tenstorrent (2024), Cerebras (2025) |
| M12 (Microsoft Ventures) | 3 | $429M | d-Matrix (2022, 2023, 2025) |
| KB Investment | 3 | $214M | Rebellions (2022, 2024), HyperAccel (2024) |
| European Innovation Council | 3 | $134M | Axelera AI (2024), NeuReality (2024), VSORA (2025) |
| BlackRock | 2 | $1,390M | Groq (2024, 2025) |
In our AI chip market deck, we cover the latest tech updates shaping the market
What are the 2026 narratives around fundraising in the AI chip market?
These are the dominant narratives shaping fundraising in the AI chip market in 2026:
- Inference chips will capture most new AI chip market funding, because running AI models around the clock costs far more than training them once.
- Chinese AI chip IPOs will continue in 2026, with several more domestic GPU startups expected to list on the STAR Market and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
- Sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and Southeast Asia are becoming decisive investors in the AI chip market, seeking compute independence from both the US and China.
- The "NVIDIA alternative" narrative remains the strongest driver of AI chip funding, as data center operators actively seek supply chain diversification and lower costs.
- Samsung is positioning itself as the most strategic corporate backer in the AI chip market, hedging across inference, edge, and open-architecture approaches worldwide.
- In-memory computing for AI inference is moving from lab to production, with d-Matrix and Mythic both shipping commercial products and raising growth-stage capital.
- South Korea is consolidating as a third major AI chip hub alongside the US and China, with dedicated government funding and chaebol backing for companies like Rebellions and FuriosaAI.
- NVIDIA's proposed $20 billion acquisition of Groq signals that the largest chipmakers may prefer buying AI chip startups rather than competing with them, potentially triggering more M&A in 2026.
- Open-source AI chip architectures, especially Tenstorrent's RISC-V approach, are gaining traction as customers push back against proprietary hardware lock-in.
- Europe is slowly emerging in the AI chip market, with France (VSORA, Arago) and the Netherlands (Axelera AI) attracting institutional capital, but still far behind US and Asian competitors.
In our AI chip market deck, we will give you useful market maps and grids
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