AI chip startup Etched sees valuation surge to $21 billion, ships first racks

Etched, an AI chip startup, announced on August 18 that it has raised $700 million in funding, valuing the company at $21 billion. This follows previous rounds of financing, including a $500 million raise in December 2025, which valued the company at $5 billion, and a $3 billion investment in July 2026, which valued Etched at $10.3 billion. Jane Street, the lead investor in the latest round, has already received the first shipment of AI accelerator racks from Etched and reported being satisfied with the initial results. Jane Street stated that Etched's unique approach to inference provides the precision needed to support demanding workloads and expressed enthusiasm about deploying the racks in their data centers. The company has also been highlighted in previous reports, including one discussing its potential $200 billion valuation and another detailing its chip design, which features low voltage to enhance computational performance along with SRAM and HBM cache technologies.