AI chip startup SambaNova is strongly considering a U.S. IPO in 2027 after raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, as investor demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to grow.
SambaNova CEO and co-founder Rodrigo Liang discussed the potential IPO at the RAISE Summit in Paris, where the company also announced the first close of its latest financing round. In an interview with TechCrunch following the company’s latest financing, he said continued momentum would most likely lead to SambaNova “being public at some point.”
The company has not announced a formal IPO filing or confirmed a listing date, meaning its plans could still change. The developments place SambaNova among a growing group of late-stage AI companies that could eventually transition from the private to public markets.
SambaNova Raises $1 Billion at an $11 Billion Valuation
On July 8, 2026, SambaNova announced the first close of $1 billion in Series F financing at an $11 billion post-money valuation.
General Atlantic led the round, with significant investment from Seligman Ventures and T. Rowe Price Associates. New and existing investors included BlackRock-managed funds and accounts, Intel Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, Battery Ventures and Vista Equity Partners, among others.
The Series F came roughly five months after SambaNova raised $350 million in Series E financing alongside the launch of its SN50 AI chip.
The new capital is intended to help SambaNova expand manufacturing and deployment capacity as demand for AI inference infrastructure grows.
Why SambaNova Is Gaining Attention
Founded in 2017, SambaNova develops specialized AI chips, systems and software focused heavily on AI inference, the process of running trained AI models to generate responses and perform tasks.
The company is positioning its technology as an alternative to traditional GPU-heavy infrastructure, particularly as enterprises deploy increasingly complex AI agents.
Its fifth-generation SN50 Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) is designed for high-speed AI inference and large-scale agentic workloads. SambaNova began previewing the technology in 2026, with broader availability planned for the second half of the year.
JPMorganChase Selects SambaNova for AI Inference
SambaNova also announced that JPMorganChase selected the company as an inference infrastructure partner.
The bank plans to use SambaNova’s SN40L and SN50 systems for secure, on-premises AI inference.
The deployment highlights growing enterprise demand for AI infrastructure that can operate within private data centers, particularly for organizations handling sensitive information.
SambaNova Expands Its Intel Partnership
SambaNova has also strengthened its relationship with Intel.
In February, the companies announced a planned multi-year strategic collaboration focused on high-performance AI inference using Intel Xeon-based infrastructure. Intel Capital also participated in SambaNova’s financing.
In April, the companies expanded the collaboration with an architecture combining GPUs for prefill, SambaNova RDUs for decoding and Intel Xeon 6 processors for system orchestration and agentic workloads.
The partnership gives SambaNova additional scale as it competes in a rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market.
AI Infrastructure Becomes a Major Private Market Theme
SambaNova’s latest financing reflects a broader shift in private-market AI investment.
Capital is increasingly flowing beyond foundation-model developers and into the infrastructure required to support AI at scale, including:
- AI chips and accelerators
- Data centers and AI cloud infrastructure
- Networking and memory
- Power and energy infrastructure
- Enterprise AI platforms
As AI adoption moves from experimentation to production, inference is becoming an increasingly important part of the infrastructure stack.
SambaNova’s $11 billion valuation shows the level of institutional investment moving toward companies positioned in this market.
What a SambaNova IPO Could Mean for Private Market Investors
A potential SambaNova IPO would represent another late-stage technology company reaching the public markets after raising substantial capital privately.
That trend matters because companies are increasingly able to remain private through multiple large financing rounds, allowing significant growth and valuation expansion to occur before an IPO.
As a result, institutional and accredited investors are increasingly evaluating pre-IPO shares, secondary transactions and special purpose vehicles (SPVs) as potential ways to participate in private companies before a public listing.
An IPO for SambaNova remains uncertain, and private investments carry significant valuation, liquidity and execution risks.
The Bottom Line
SambaNova’s $1 billion Series F at an $11 billion valuation has positioned the company as one of the more closely watched private AI infrastructure companies.
With JPMorganChase deploying its technology, an expanding partnership with Intel and management openly considering a 2027 U.S. IPO, SambaNova could become another significant private AI company to move toward the public markets.
For investors, the company also illustrates a broader shift: increasingly, significant technology investment and valuation growth are taking place in the private markets well before an IPO.
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No. SambaNova remains privately held as of September 2026. The company is considering a potential IPO, but no formal listing has been announced. CEO Rodrigo Liang said in July 2026 that SambaNova was strongly considering an IPO in 2027, most likely in the United States. No formal IPO filing or listing date has been announced. SambaNova was valued at $11 billion post-money following the first close of its July 2026 Series F financing. SambaNova announced the first close of $1 billion in Series F financing in July 2026. Earlier in February, the company raised $350 million in Series E financing. SambaNova develops AI chips, systems and software focused on high-performance inference for enterprises, cloud providers and large-scale AI deployments.SambaNova