Startup once told ‘don’t back the kids in chips’ is hiring Nvidia talent
A promising chip startup, Etched, has begun attracting top engineering talent from industry giants. Founded by three young innovators at just 24 years old, the company has landed impressive orders and commenced shipping its groundbreaking AI chips. With its valuation soaring to twenty-one billion dollars after significant investment, Jane Street has emerged as its first key customer, signaling…
A chip startup once dismissed by investors as too inexperienced to compete with the industry giants is now attracting top talent from major chip companies like Nvidia. Etched, founded by three 24-year-old Harvard graduates, has signed its first customer in a quantitative trading firm, Jane Street, and secured over $1 billion in orders.
The company has also begun shipping its AI chips, just 44 days after receiving test chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. This turnaround has surprised some of its new employees, including former Nvidia systems engineer Anthony Gamerman, who said he's heard colleagues leave Nvidia for Etched. Investors had once warned against backing young chip founders, with Sequoia Capital general partner Sonya Huang stating that the prevailing wisdom was 'don't back the kids in chips.'
Etched has since raised nearly $2 billion, including a $700 million funding round led by Jane Street, valuing the company at $21 billion. The startup has built a team with significant semiconductor experience, with around 15% of its 400 employees previously working at Nvidia and other semiconductor firms. Brian Loiler, who spent 23 years at Nvidia, has helped recruit about a dozen Nvidia engineers to Etched.
The company's AI processors are specifically designed for this workload, and Etched believes it may be the only AI chip built by a startup that succeeded on the first try.
Written by urgent.news from Times of India's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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