Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M

<p id="speakable-summary" class="wp-block-paragraph">MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware engineers, has raised a $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The company’s goal is to make its processors 10 times better at training LLMs and delivering results than Nvidia’s GPUs.  </p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Other investors in the round include Marvell Technology, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, the startup’s founder and CEO Reiner Pope announced Tuesday in a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/reiner-pope-08064345_were-building-an-llm-chip-that-delivers-activity-7432121445289328641-7C_R?utm_source=social_share_send&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop_web&amp;rcm=ACoAAAERmzIBOFgNvRHWUny-3IuRn0I3lovo2tU" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">post on LinkedIn</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Although the company didn’t release its latest valuation, Etched, MatX’s closest competitor, raised a $500 million round at a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-13/ai-chip-startup-etched-raises-500-million-to-take-on-nvidia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$5 billion valuation</a>, Bloomberg reported last month. Etched didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">MatX’s latest round comes more than a year after its Series A of about $100 million, which was led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch earlier reported that the 2024 round valued the startup at more than <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/22/ai-chip-startup-matx-founded-by-google-alums-raises-series-a-at-300m-valuation-sources-say/">$300 million</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Before co-founding <a href="https://matx.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">MatX</a> in 2023, Pope led AI software development for Google’s TPUs, the tech giant’s proprietary AI chips. His co-founder, Mike Gunter, was a lead designer of the TPU hardware before leaving to launch the startup.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The new funding will help MatX produce its chips with TSMC, with plans to start shipping them in 2027.</p>