SiFive, a company founded in 2015 by UC Berkeley engineers known for creating an open-source chip design, has recently secured a $400 million oversubscribed funding round, valuing the company at $3.65 billion.
What makes this deal particularly noteworthy is that SiFive’s RISC-V open chip design is based on the RISC processor, rather than the more common Intel x86 or ARM architectures that currently dominate the market.
Among the investors in this round is Nvidia, a major player in the GPU computing and AI space. The funding was led by Atreides Management, a firm founded by Gavin Baker, a former Fidelity investor. Other notable investors include Apollo Global Management, D1 Capital Partners, and T. Rowe Price Sutter Hill Ventures.
SiFive follows a business model similar to Arm’s, licensing its chip designs to be customized by others rather than manufacturing and selling the chips themselves. This stands in contrast to Arm’s recent shift towards manufacturing its own chips, such as the AI chip developed in partnership with Meta.
With the influx of funding and Nvidia’s involvement, SiFive is expanding its focus from smaller embedded systems to CPUs for AI data centers. Its designs will be compatible with Nvidia’s CUDA software and NVLink Fusion, enabling integration with Nvidia’s AI infrastructure.
As competitors like Intel and AMD challenge Nvidia’s GPU dominance, Nvidia’s support of SiFive represents a bet on alternative CPU technology. SiFive’s open and neutral approach to chip design sets it apart in the industry.
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