SiFive, a Silicon Valley start-up, announced on Thursday that it had raised $400 million from Atreides Management, Nvidia, and other investors to enter the growing market for data center central processing unit (CPU) chips.
This funding round values SiFive at $3.65 billion, with CEO Patrick Little stating that this is the company’s final funding round before going public, although no specific timing was provided. SiFive does not sell chips but instead offers customizable plans for customers like Google to use for their internal chip designs.
The company’s intellectual property business has traditionally been dominated by Arm Holdings, but Arm recently unveiled its own chips, becoming a potential competitor to many of its long-time customers.
Little noted that Arm’s strategic shift provides SiFive with the opportunity to attract new customers. SiFive designs use a new open chip standard called RISC-V, overseen by a non-profit foundation and not controlled by a single company like Arm’s chip technology.
SiFive will use the $400 million in funding to develop a central processor design for data centers, a market that is seeing increased interest with Arm’s recent offering, Nvidia’s entry, and Intel struggling to meet demand.
In addition to Atreides and Nvidia, other investors in this funding round included Apollo, D1 Capital Partners, Point72, and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Investment Management, as well as previous investors Prosperity 7 Ventures, Capital Group, and Sutter Hill Ventures.
