Vista, Intel back SambaNova in $350m round

Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners is leading a new funding round of more than $350 million in artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems, according to people familiar with the matter. The financing is structured as a Series E round and is described as oversubscribed, indicating strong investor demand.

Vista is investing through a partnership with early-stage venture capital firm Cambium Capital, three sources told Reuters. The deal terms, including SambaNova’s valuation, have not been determined publicly, and the sources cautioned that fundraising is ongoing and terms could still change.

Vista, SambaNova and Cambium either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Intel also declined to comment, the reports said.

Other investors in the SambaNova round include existing backer Intel Corp, which currently plans to invest about $100 million, with potential commitments of up to $150 million, according to two of the sources. The new capital is intended to help SambaNova compete with market leader Nvidia Corp and address rising demand for inference chips used in AI applications.

Inference chips are used to run AI models quickly and efficiently once they are trained, and interest in such hardware has intensified as more companies deploy AI services at scale.

The investment marks a rare shift for Vista, which manages more than $100 billion in assets and states on its website that it "invests exclusively in enterprise software companies." Vista is best known for large software transactions, including its 2022 acquisition of cloud computing company Citrix Systems and its 2025 purchase of software company Nexthink.

The move into AI chips comes as software stocks have been under pressure in recent months. AI has shifted from a tailwind for many software companies to a potential source of disruption, contributing to a selloff in global software shares this week that wiped out nearly $1 trillion in market value as investors reassessed valuations.

SambaNova’s fundraising is part of a broader surge of interest in AI hardware targeting Nvidia’s dominant position. Reuters reports a flurry of dealmaking around Nvidia challengers as AI companies seek alternatives to Nvidia GPUs that can run inference workloads more quickly and efficiently.

AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems said this week that it raised $1 billion in a funding round valuing the company at $23 billion. That round was led by Tiger Global and included participation from 1789 Capital, which is backed by Donald Trump Jr., according to the report.

In December, SambaNova rival Groq reached a deal with Nvidia for Nvidia to license Groq’s technology in a $20 billion all-cash deal and hire much of Groq’s team. Earlier Reuters reporting cited in the articles said that OpenAI held talks with both Groq and Cerebras about compute supply deals as it looked for alternatives to Nvidia GPUs to meet fast-inference needs.