AI Startup Roundup: Legendary Chip Engineer's Startup Snags $100M

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Tenstorrent

Toronto-based startup Tenstorrent sells AI processors, and licenses AI and CPU intellectual property to customers that want to own and customize their silicon.

Tenstorrent is led by CEO Jim Keller, the renowned chip engineer who was the lead architect of the AMD K8 microarchitecture. Keller was also part of the Apple design team for the A4 and A5 processors.

The Canadian company has offices in Austin, Texas; Silicon Valley; Belgrade, Serbia; Tokyo and Bangalore, India.

From left: Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller and Samsung EVP Marco Chisari

Latest funding: $100 million, convertible note

Lead investors: Samsung Catalyst Fund, Hyundai Motor Group

Other investors: Maverick Capital, Fidelity Ventures, EPIQ Capital Group, Eclipse Ventures

Funding plans: Funding will be used to accelerate the company’s product development, design and development of its AI chiplets and power its machine learning software roadmap.

GoStudent

Vienna-based GoStudent is a digital platform connecting students to teachers in a virtual learning environment.

The hybrid education site looks to blend technology with personalized tutoring.

Key investors: SoftBank Vision Fund, Tencent, Deutsche Bank

Other investors: Prosus, Left Lane Capital, DST Global, DN Capital, Coatue

Funding plans: GoStudent plans to focus on AI integrations, including an AI lesson plan generator to save educators time, as well as AI-driven content-based learning.

Persist AI

Based in Woodland, California, Persist AI is a biotech company using AI to build long-acting injectable formulations.

Persist’s suite offers formulation screening and automated drug-release testing to address issues faced by drug manufacturers, such as drug clearance in the body and shelf life issues.

Latest funding: $4 million, seed round

Lead investor: 2048 Ventures

Other investors: Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Jovono, Innospark Ventures, Fellows Fund

Funding plans: Persist said the funding will be used to fuel its work, attract new staff and expand its reach.

Wisecut

Based in Miami, Florida, Wisecut uses speech recognition and generative AI to edit videos.

Its tech can turn long-form talking videos into short clips with music, subtitles and reframing for posting on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Latest funding: $1 million, seed round

Lead investor: Draper Associates

Funding plans: Wisecut said it’s planning on expanding its generative AI tech to shorten one-hour-long videos.