Etched raises $700M at $21B valuation

Etching (disambiguation), a San Jose-based AI inference chip startup, raised $700 million in a funding round led by Jane Street Group, more than doubling its valuation to $21 billion in less than a month. The round included participation from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Bain Capital Ventures, Blackstone, and others. This follows a $300 million Series C round in July that valued the company at $10.3 billion. Etching (disambiguation) designs specialized inference accelerators to run AI models faster and cheaper, challenging Nvidia's dominance. The company has secured over $1 billion in customer contracts and shipped its first rack to Jane Street Group, its first customer. Etching (disambiguation) employs around 400 people and operates data centers in San Jose and Milpitas. The funding reflects surging investor interest in AI infrastructure, particularly inference.