Etched Hits $21B Valuation After Shipping First ChatGPT Architecture Chip

Quant-trading firm Jane Street led a $700 million funding round for Etched, a startup developing inference chips for large language models. The investment values the company at $21 billion and includes participation from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, a16z, Peter Thiel, BCV, and Blackstone. The startup has delivered its first server rack to Jane Street following a successful A0 chip milestone this year.

The valuation is more than double the $10.3 billion mark recorded in July when the company raised $300 million. Founded by Harvard dropouts and maintaining its own in-office data center, Etched is the first company to ship a chip designed after the ChatGPT architecture.