SiFive has closed a $400 million oversubscribed funding round, pushing its valuation to $3.65 billion. The investment, led by Atreides Management, includes participation from Nvidia alongside a roster of venture capital firms, private equity groups, and hedge funds.
Founded in 2015 by UC Berkeley engineers, SiFive builds on the open-source RISC-V chip architecture. Unlike the dominant x86 and ARM processor designs, RISC-V offers a neutral, non-proprietary foundation. This round marks SiFive’s first major capital infusion since March 2022, when it raised $175 million at a pre-money valuation of $2.33 billion.
Atreides Management, established by former Fidelity investor Gavin Baker, spearheaded the deal. The firm previously backed Cerebras Systems in its $1 billion funding round. Other investors in this SiFive round include Apollo Global Management, D1 Capital Partners, Point72 Turion, and T. Rowe Price Sutter Hill Ventures.
SiFive operates on a licensing model similar to Arm’s historical approach. It provides chip designs for clients to customize, rather than manufacturing chips directly. In contrast, Arm recently shifted its strategy by launching its first in-house AI chip in March, developed in partnership with Meta and targeting customers like OpenAI, Cerebras, and Cloudflare.
Historically, RISC-V has been associated with embedded systems and niche applications. With this new capital and Nvidia’s backing, SiFive is aggressively targeting the AI data center CPU market. Its designs are engineered to integrate with Nvidia’s CUDA software and NVLink Fusion, a rack server system that enables diverse CPUs to connect into Nvidia’s AI infrastructure.
Nvidia’s investment in SiFive represents a strategic move as competitors Intel and AMD intensify their efforts to challenge Nvidia’s GPU dominance. By supporting an 11-year-old startup focused on open RISC-V technology, Nvidia is diversifying its ecosystem and reinforcing its position in the AI hardware landscape.
The previous funding round in March 2022 was led by Coatue Management and included investors such as Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Aramco Ventures. SiFive’s ascent to a $3.65 billion valuation underscores the growing traction of open-source chip designs in high-stakes computing environments.
