Etched
Summary active Updated Jul 24, 2026This profile is AI-generated. If you spot an error, please help us fix it by sharing a URL to the correct information.
Investors
Founders
About
Etched is an AI chip startup, founded in 2022 by three Harvard dropouts (Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen, and Chris Zhu), that builds transformer-specialized inference hardware 12. Its architecture hard-codes the transformer model into silicon, sacrificing generality for order-of-magnitude gains in inference throughput and cost 1. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, SK Hynix, Jane Street, Diffusion Capital, Peter Thiel, Andrej Karpathy, Dylan Field, and Amjad Masad 12.
On 2026-07-23 Etched announced a $300M Series C at a $10.3B valuation, less than a month after emerging from stealth with its production hardware 123. The round was led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Diffusion Capital, and SK Hynix; TechCrunch reported it as the highest-valuation Sequoia-led Series C on record 12. The valuation roughly doubled from a $5B mark set in a December 2025 round 1. Etched has opened an 80,000-square-foot facility housing an NPI lab and in-house SMT line in addition to its Taiwan production footprint 2.
Disclaimer: This is a lean profile built from initial round coverage and may be expanded as more information becomes available.
Funding History
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead | Co-investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-23 | Series C | $300M | Sequoia Capital | Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Diffusion Capital, SK Hynix 123 |
| 2025-12 | Growth round | $500M | – | – 1 |
What Investors Say
Sonya Huang, Partner at Sequoia Capital: “Inference is on the path to becoming the largest market in the world, and purpose-built compute will power the majority of the world’s inference.” 3
What Founders Say
Gavin Uberti, Co-founder and CEO: “Now is the time to be aggressive. Our chips work, people want them, and it’s time to ship.” 3
Robert Wachen, Co-founder and President: “The team is working around the clock with our early customers to bring our first product to life.” 3
Sources
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Julie Bort, “AI chip startup Etched defies skeptics, hits $10.3B valuation from big-name investors,” TechCrunch, July 23, 2026. Accessed July 24, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/23/ai-chip-startup-etched-defies-skeptics-hits-10-3b-valuation-from-big-name-investors/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“Etched raises $300M at a $10.3B Valuation to Scale Production of Frontier Scale Inference Hardware,” GlobeNewswire, July 23, 2026. Accessed July 24, 2026. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/07/23/3332366/0/en/Etched-raises-300M-at-a-10-3B-Valuation-to-Scale-Production-of-Frontier-Scale-Inference-Hardware.html↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“SK Hynix-backed AI chip startup Etched raises $300M at $10.3B valuation,” Seeking Alpha, July 23, 2026. Accessed July 24, 2026. https://seekingalpha.com/news/4617524-sk-hynix-backed-ai-chip-startup-etched-raises-300m-at-10_3b-valuation↩↩↩↩↩