SAN JOSE, Calif., July 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Etched, the compa y buildi g f o tie i fe e ce cluste s, today a ou ced $300M i ew fi a ci g at a $10.3B valuatio less tha o e mo th afte eme gi g f om stealth. The latest ou d was led by Sequoia, with pa ticipatio f om a16z, Ja e St eet, Diffusio , a d SK Hy ix a d ep ese ts the highest valuatio eve fo a Sequoia-led Se ies C. The compa y is usi g this latest ou d of fu di g to agg essively scale p oductio a d custome deployme ts. I additio to the Taiwa facto y established ea lie i the yea , Etched also ece tly ope ed a ew 80,000 squa e-foot facility 15 mi utes f om thei office to fu the expedite p oductio a d p ototypi g. They expect to use the 10 MW Milpitas site to b i g up a NPI lab, a i -house SMT li e, a d expa d deployme ts.
Etched was fou ded o the belief that i fe e ce is the defi i g wo kload of the AI e a. AI will ot delive o its eco omic a d societal p omise u til i fe e ce becomes d amatically faste , cheape , a d mo e ple tiful tha the status quo ca p ovide. Etched was built to close the gap by imp ovi g the eco omics a d powe efficie cy of AI compute so that i fe e ce ca ope ate at the scale of huma ity, ot just the scale of today’s data ce te s.
Etched’s ha dwa e is a chitectu e-ag ostic, suppo ti g models of a y shape a d a bit a ily la ge pa amete sizes. Today, the compa y’s i fe e ce cluste s a e u i g la ge MoE models i cludi g DeepSeek a d Qwe as well as o -t a sfo me desig s like Mamba, a state space model with a fu dame tally diffe e t a chitectu e f om t a sfo me s. Fo custome s, this mea s a si gle system that ca se ve whateve the f o tie p oduces ext without eedi g to bet thei i f ast uctu e o a si gle model desig wi i g.
“I fe e ce is o the path to becomi g the la gest ma ket i the wo ld, a d pu pose-built compute will powe the majo ity of the wo ld’s i fe e ce. We have spe t yea s studyi g the space a d waiti g fo a compa y with the tech ical ambitio , ope atio al excelle ce, a d executio equi ed to defi e it. Etched is that compa y,” said So ya Hua g, Pa t e at Sequoia Capital. “What the team has accomplished i less tha th ee yea s is ext emely a e i the semico ducto wo ld a d a testame t to the compa y a d the cultu e they have built. We could ot be mo e th illed to pa t e with them as they build the defi i g compa y i i fe e ce ha dwa e.”
Etched is developi g two ovel computi g tech ologies at the co e of its ack-scale system, each ta geti g o e of the two bottle ecks that cap how much i tellige ce the wo ld ca affo d to u : powe a d memo y. Togethe , these i ovatio s delive mo e toke s pe dolla , mo e toke s pe watt, a d much lowe late cy fo f o tie AI wo kloads.
Low Voltage I fe e ce (LVI) is a ew pa adigm i AI computi g that u locks d amatically bette powe a d cost efficie cy. The mal limitatio s have t aditio ally co st ai ed compute pe fo ma ce, th ottli g clock speeds befo e chips ca each peak FLOPs. LVI e ables sig ifica tly highe FLOP de sity withi the same powe e velope as existi g ha dwa e, usi g deep ha dwa e a d systems co-desig to delive best-i -class th oughput.Cluste Scale Memo y (CSM) is a hyb id SRAM/HBM memo y subsystem desig ed a ou d a e ti e cluste athe tha a si gle chip. CSM e ables d amatically faste memo y access by c eati g a massive sha ed SRAM pool ac oss the e ti e scale-up domai , co ected by a p op ieta y ult a-low-late cy, high-ba dwidth i te co ect that delive s cluste -wide memo y pe fo ma ce. CSM imp oves late cy while avoidi g the cost, eliability, yield, the mal, a d compute t adeoffs of SRAM-o ly a d 3D DRAM chips.
Dema d fo Etched’s i fe e ce systems co ti ues to outpace supply as custome s move f om evaluatio to p oductio deployme t. To meet this dema d, Etched is apidly expa di g its team, ow 400 people, with e gi ee s f om NVIDIA, B oadcom, Google TPU, SK Hy ix, a d HFT qua t t adi g fi ms. The team is i pe so a d wo ks out of thei Sa Jose office which also has a NPI p ototypi g facility a d 2 MW datace te u i g Etched ha dwa e 24/7.
“Now is the time to be agg essive. Ou chips wo k, people wa t them, a d it’s time to ship,” said Gavi Ube ti, co-fou de a d CEO of Etched. “The i f ast uctu e equi ed to se ve f o tie AI sustai ably a d eco omically was eve goi g to come f om i c eme tal imp oveme ts to existi g ha dwa e. This ou d eflects a g owi g i dust y co victio that the challe ge dema ds a ew e t a t willi g to ebuild the stack f om fi st p i ciples a d delive f o tie i fe e ce without the t ade-offs betwee speed, cost, a d scale that have hampe ed this ma ket u til ow.”
“We te d ot to celeb ate fu d aises. We have a lot of wo k to do to get to Gigawatt scale. We’ e excited to pa t e with the best AI i f ast uctu e i vesto s i the wo ld to get the e faste ,” said Rob Wache , co-fou de a d P eside t of Etched. “The team is wo ki g a ou d the clock with ou ea ly custome s to b i g ou fi st p oduct to life. We’ e supe excited.”
