SambaNova raises fresh funding at an $11bn valuation as the Nvidia-alternative trade heats up

SambaNova has raised fresh funding at an $11bn valuation, up from roughly $2bn earlier in the year — a fivefold jump driven by investor appetite for Nvidia alternatives. The company builds chips using a Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit architecture targeting AI inference workloads, pitching lower cost and power consumption versus GPU-based designs. Backers include SoftBank Vision Fund, Intel, BlackRock, and Temasek, with total lifetime funding near $1.5bn. The rapid re-rating reflects a broader market shift from model training to inference, where cost efficiency is now critical. SambaNova competes with Cerebras and Groq for the same opening, and the $11bn valuation raises questions about a potential IPO.