Overview
- SiFive secured $400 million at a $3.65 billion valuation in a round led by Atreides with Nvidia, Apollo, D1 Capital, Point72, T. Rowe Price, Prosperity7 Ventures, Capital Group, and Sutter Hill Ventures participating, and the CEO said he expects this to be the last private raise before an IPO.
- The company said it will use the money to design a central processor for data centers based on RISC‑V, an open instruction set that lets customers add features, and it will continue to license processor blueprints rather than sell finished chips.
- Nvidia’s role as an investor drew attention because industry reports say SiFive’s roadmap includes enablement for NVLink Fusion, which could let RISC‑V CPUs plug into Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU fabric, though the companies have not detailed timelines.
- SiFive and partners are still building out the software stack that large deployments need, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu support underway and a CUDA port previously announced without a firm date, so adoption will hinge on complete tools and proven performance.
- The push comes as Arm upended the market by releasing its own production silicon and as data‑center CPUs gain new weight handling orchestration for agent‑style AI, a shift that could let hyperscalers tailor RISC‑V designs to cut power and avoid lock‑in if the technology delivers at scale.