Tech

AI chip maker SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, 5 months after last mega round

Published

1 minute ago

July 8, 2026

AI chip company SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation led by General Atlantic, in a first close of its Series F round, with more investors expected to join soon.

“In the next few weeks, a few more investors will be coming in, and the second close is likely to finish up,” Rodrigo Liang, CEO and co-founder of SambaNova, told TechCrunch.

The latest round comes roughly five months after the Palo Alto, California-based startup company unveiled its SN50 chip, alongside a $350 million Series E in February. SambaNova had also been in acquisition talks with Intel, a deal valuing it at roughly $1.6 billion, according to a December report from Bloomberg News.

Asked whether closing its Series E and F rounds meant SambaNova, founded in 2017, had settled on staying independent, Liang was noncommittal. He said the company keeps fielding interest. “We’re always being approached.” The door is open to such an exit in this dynamic AI market, the CEO said, but momentum and growth will most likely drive the company toward “being public at some point.”

SambaNova’s ties to Intel, a backer since its Series C and a participant in this latest round, have deepened. Five months ago, the nine-year-old startup announced a multi-year partnership with Intel to support AI inference development based on Intel’s Xeon chip. The two now co-develop products and take them to market together. “That gives us a great relationship with them that lets us leverage the scale of Intel with the technology we have,” Liang said.

Alongside the new funding, SambaNova said it has been selected by JPMorganChase as an “inference-infrastructure partner,” with its SN40L and SN50 systems set to power secure, on-premises AI inference at the bank.

“Having JPMorgan Chase decide they’re going to use SambaNova for their inference solution is a big deal,” Liang told TechCrunch. “It sends a message to the banking industry that it’s time not to completely depend on cloud services. These banks want heterogeneous [infrastructure].”

Liang said the JPMorgan win was a signal to the broader market. Banks “of the caliber of JP Morgan” are now building their own private, secure infrastructure to run inference on their most sensitive models, he said, a move he expects to resonate beyond banking. Enterprises and governments are “just starting their AI journey,” Liang continued, with most of the growth so far concentrated among tech’s model makers and frontier labs, leaving what he called “a huge amount of revenue” still on the table.

SambaNova launched its SN40L in September 2023, available in the cloud, and on-premises from November 2023. Its next-generation SN50, unveiled in February 2026, is due to begin shipping to customers in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as its first deployment partner, Liang noted.

Liang said SambaNova’s edge as “premium inference” running the largest models and running them fast. Today’s frontier models span trillions of parameters, and he said SambaNova was built specifically to handle them at that scale. The company fits multi-trillion-parameter models onto a single rack which helps them run quickly.

SambaNova sees three types of customers. The first is sovereign clouds, where governments fund local partners to build private clouds, a push Liang expects SambaNova to figure centrally in. The second is neoclouds. The third is enterprises building for their own use. In addition to JPMorgan, it also names Saudi Aramco, Intel, and other Japanese firms as customers.

SambaNova will use the proceeds to scale the business and shore up its supply chain against what Liang called an incredible wave of demand. “We’re using that capital to secure the supply chain,” he said, describing it as essential to fulfilling orders and buying the materials the company needs to deliver over the next 12 months.

Other investors participating in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group. New and existing investors also joined, including A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.

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Tech

Final extension: Startup Battlefield Australia applications now close July 20

Published

9 hours ago

July 7, 2026

qasimgillani

One last chance to apply

Due to overwhelming interest, we’ve extended applications for Startup Battlefield Australia to July 20.

If you’ve been thinking about applying, do it now. There won’t be another extension.

One application could change everything

Since the first Startup Battlefield Australia in 2017, there have been 26 alumni companies that have collectively raised over $147 million, with three successful acquisitions. They’ve been backed by some of the world’s most respected investors — including Y Combinator, Blackbird Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Khosla Ventures, Microsoft, AirTree Ventures, Startmate, Techstars, and SOSV.

It all started with one decision: They applied.

Why apply now?

If you’re building something ambitious, this is a fast track to the people who can move your startup forward.

Selected founders will pitch live to:

Top-tier investors.
Global media.
Australia’s leading founders and operators.
Potential partners, customers, and hires.

This is more than a pitch competition. It’s a chance to earn visibility, credibility, and connections that can take years to build.

What’s at stake?

On August 19, 2026, eight startups will pitch live at Stripe Tour Sydney.

The top three will receive up to $15,000 in Stripe fee credits.

The grand prize is even bigger:

Automatic entry into Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this October.

No second application. No extra round. Just a direct path to one of the world’s biggest startup stages.

Who should apply?

We’re looking for early-stage startups across Australia and New Zealand that are:

Pre-seed to Series B.
Building a real product or showing strong traction.
Ready to scale.
Ready to tell their story.

You don’t need to be a household name.

We’re looking for the next one.

The deadline has moved — the opportunity hasn’t

This extension gives you more time, but not much.

Applications now close July 20.

If you’ve been waiting, this is the moment.

Submit your application before July 20.

Free to apply. No equity taken. One opportunity that could change everything.

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Tech

Meta rolls out Muse, a new AI image generator

Published

9 hours ago

July 7, 2026

qasimgillani

Meta has unveiled its new AI image generator, Muse Image, which was produced by Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company’s dedicated AI unit.

The new feature, which was internally code-named Mango, will be available for free through the Meta AI app, as well as in Instagram Stories and WhatsApp.

What exactly can you do with Muse? It sounds like the use-cases are similar to most other AI image generators — you’ll be able to create a whole lot of goofy and cartoonish images, for instance.

If you’re suffering from a dearth of imagination and can’t come up with any original prompts on your own, Meta says that Muse comes with “presets” — prefabricated image prompts — to “spark ideas.”

An accompanying video shows other potential uses. One is to use Muse to create custom ads (AI has notably crept into advertising over the past year) or to play around with interior decoration ideas (in the video, a user leverages Muse to see what a used couch might look like in their garage). This last function is designed to be integrated with Facebook Marketplace, Meta’s popular Craigslist-like locus of used furniture and accessories.

The model also features prompt-based image editing, which can be used to create images to share across Meta’s various apps and platforms.

“Ask it to mock up an image of you in front of a historical landmark, cleanly erase a photobomber from the background of a shot, or write a custom prompt to build a functional QR code,” the company offers.

At the same time, Meta is launching a host of new AI effects for Instagram Stories which are supported by Muse. Those effects include various customizable filters that can be used to modify existing photos.

Meta says that the use of the new AI model is free for “everyday creation” although, past a certain limit, users will need to use Meta’s subscription plans.

The company also said that Muse Video — presumably an AI video generator — is “already in development.” TechCrunch reached out to Meta for more information.

Meta has released a number of AI apps and services over the past year, including an assistant called Creator, and Pocket, an app that can be used to vibe code video games. The company has been accused of having a nebulous AI strategy, although it’s still on track to spend a whole lot on AI infrastructure this year as it continues to build out its services.

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