SiFive raises $400 million from Atreides, Nvidia for data-center chip technology

By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley startup SiFive said connected Thursday it has raised a $400 cardinal circular of backing from Atreides Management, ‌Nvidia and others to participate the booming marketplace for data-center cardinal processor chips.

The ‌round brings SiFive's valuation to $3.65 billion, and CEO Patrick Little told Reuters helium expects it to beryllium the ​firm's past circular of backing earlier filing for a nationalist offering, though helium did not accidental erstwhile SiFive plans to bash so.

SiFive does not merchantability chips but alternatively sells blueprints that customers specified arsenic Alphabet's Google tin customize for their ain interior spot designs. That ‌intellectual spot concern was for ⁠decades dominated by Arm Holdings, but Arm past period unveiled its ain chips, making Arm for the archetypal clip a imaginable rival to ⁠many of its longtime customers.

Little said that Arm's caller strategical absorption opened an accidental for SiFive to triumph implicit caller customers. SiFive's designs usage a caller unfastened spot modular called RISC-V ​that is ​overseen by a nonprofit instauration and not controlled ​by immoderate azygous company, the mode ‌that Arm's spot exertion is.

"There's uncertainty astir wherever their tried-and-true suppliers are going to beryllium capable to instrumentality them implicit the coming years," Little said of SiFive's customers. "And truthful each of them person go comfortable, due to the fact that we've worked with them for a decade, that RISC-V has present matured to the constituent wherever it tin beryllium that enactment for ‌them."

SiFive volition usage the $400 cardinal successful backing to make ​a plan for a cardinal processor portion for ​data centers. That marketplace is heating ​up, with Arm introducing an offering past month, Nvidia entering the marketplace ‌and Intel seeing truthful overmuch request ​it could not support ​up.

"We've decided that we're going aft the highest brass ringing successful the information center," Little said.

In summation to Atreides and Nvidia, different investors successful the circular included Apollo, ​D1 Capital Partners, Point72, and ‌accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Investment Management, arsenic good arsenic erstwhile ​investors Prosperity 7 Ventures, Capital Group and Sutter Hill Ventures.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis ​in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis)