A year after filing to IPO, still-private Cerebras Systems raises $1.1B |

Nvidia rivalCerebrasSystemsraised a new round of private financing despiteitsprevious plan to be tradingon the public market by 2025.

Silicon Valley-basedCerebrasannounced it raised a $1.1 billion Series G round on Tuesdaythatvalued the AI hardware company at$8.1 billion.The round was co-led by Fidelity and AtreidesManagement with participation from Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners,and 1789 Capital, among others.

Cerebras, which was founded in 2015and offers chips, hardware systems, and cloud services specifically designed for AI, hasnow raised almost $2 billionin its 10-year history.Itsmost recentprior financingwasa $250 million Series F round in 2021 that was led by Alpha Wave Ventures and valued the company at more than$4 billion.

This latest funding roundfollows a year ofexplosive growth, Andrew Feldman,Cerebrasco-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.Feldman said this growth is tiedto thecompany’s AIinference services, the process of using AI models togenerate outputs,which were releasedin August 2024.

“By[the second quarter]of2024,we came to believe that[we]had crossed a tipping point in which the AI that had been made was becoming useful, and that means you would see an explosion of demand forinference,” Feldman said. “We reallocated some resources, we hired more people, and in August,welaunched our inference cloud, and the demand has been overwhelming.”

The company has opened five new data centers in 2025 to house its AI hardware in locations including Dallas, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Santa Clara, California; among other locales, with more in the worksin areas including Montreal and Europe.

Expanding its data center footprint and U.S. manufacturing hubs arelargelywhere this recent round of funding will be put, in addition to some tech advances Feldmandidn’tdelve into.

Raising this latest fundingwasn’tlikelyCerebras’initialplanas the companyinitially filed paperwork for an IPOexactly a year ago, September 30, 2024.It ran intoregulatory delays soon after.

The company’sIPO was initiallydelayedbecause ofa review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States due toa$335 million investment fromG42,anAbu Dhabi-based cloud and AI company. The IPO wasfurther delayedin early 2025due tounfilled positions in CFIUS at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s term.

Feldman said that the company still plansto IPO, but wouldn’tsharespecifics.He said that the company is following a common pathfor late-stage startupsof raising a large funding round fromlargely publicinvestors beforelistingon the public market itself.

“We chose a small number of leaders who would help us, not just in this round, but in the future,” Feldman said. “Companies that areleaders in late-stage private[fundraising], butpredominantly dopublic. And you know,it’sour aspiration to be a public company.”