MatX has raised a $500 million Series B to support production of its custom processors and move toward commercial shipments in 2027, with Jane Street and Situational Awareness leading the round and several technology and finance investors joining. The chip startup, founded by two former Google hardware engineers, says its processors aim to train large language models and deliver results at speeds 10 times faster than Nvidia’s GPUs.
Funding And Backers
Reiner Pope, MatX’s founder and chief executive, announced the financing on Tuesday in a post on LinkedIn. He said the round includes investments from Marvell Technology, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison. Situational Awareness is an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.
Competition And Valuation Context
The company did not disclose its valuation. Bloomberg reported last month that Etched, which MatX describes as its closest competitor, raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation. Etched did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to that report. The new round follows a Series A of about $100 million raised more than a year earlier, which Spark Capital led. TechCrunch had reported that the 2024 financing valued MatX at more than $300 million.
Founders And Manufacturing Plans
Pope co-founded MatX in 2023 after leading AI software development for Google’s Tensor Processing Units, the company’s in-house AI chips. His co-founder, Mike Gunter, had been a lead designer of TPU hardware before leaving Google to start the company. MatX said the new capital will support chip production with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, with plans to begin shipping its processors in 2027.
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