Tenstorrent raises $1.5 billion with Tether participation at $6.2 billion valuation
Key Facts
AI chip company Tenstorrent closed a $1.5 billion Series E equity funding round with participation from Tether Investments, according to the company's announcement in October 2026. Tenstorrent's post-money valuation reached $6.2 billion, the valuation the company announced at the close of the round. Trace Capital and Innovation X led the financing, while Tenstorrent listed Tether's investment arm among the participating investors. The funding gives the company resources to support production of the computing systems it develops, with Reuters reporting that the money will be used to increase production of "Galaxy" servers. The company's applications target large language models and video generation, according to its announcement, directing the funding toward products designed to run AI workloads.
The round follows an earlier financing that Tenstorrent announced it had closed on December 2, 2024, in a previous stage of raising capital to develop its chip business. The company raised more than $693 million in that Series D round, according to its statement on the financing. In the same announcement, it put its pre-money valuation at $2 billion, compared with the post-money valuation used in the current round's announcement. Samsung Securities and AFW Partners led the previous round, according to Tenstorrent, before Trace Capital and Innovation X took the lead in the current financing. The comparison therefore spans two different funding stages, each with a stated valuation basis: the previous round's valuation excluded the new funds, while the current valuation includes the proceeds of the new financing.
Tether's participation forms part of its proprietary investment activities, which the company says rely on resources separate from the funds backing its USDT stablecoin. Tether said in its earnings statement: "These investments are funded from the company's excess capital and profits and are fully segregated from USDT reserves." That proprietary investment portfolio exceeded $20 billion by the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the company's disclosure for that year. In the same disclosure, Tether announced net profit of more than $10 billion during 2025 as part of its financial results. The company thus identifies excess capital and profits as the source of funding for its proprietary investments, while keeping stablecoin reserves entirely separate from the portfolio.
In another AI-related activity, Tether Capital announced a strategic investment in "Aisa" on October 15, 2026, according to a Tether statement. The statement linked the investment to Tether's expansion into AI agent payments as part of its push into AI-powered payments and programmable money. As for Tenstorrent's technology, Reuters said the company uses an open-source processor design architecture known as "RISC-V." The architecture allows companies to design processors without paying licensing fees for the architecture itself, according to the agency's description. In chip manufacturing, Tenstorrent previously announced that it had selected Samsung Foundry to manufacture and bring to market a new generation of its AI chiplets.
Tenstorrent's activities extend to the Middle East and Africa, where Ecoblox announced a partnership with the company to support the growth of AI and high-performance computing data centres in the region. In Abu Dhabi, the company has another partnership with Infinia aimed at building sovereign AI infrastructure, according to Tenstorrent's announcement of the collaboration. The company identified government customers among the groups initially targeted by the partnership in Gulf Cooperation Council countries, alongside customers in other economic sectors. Target customers also include financial services institutions and critical infrastructure operators in Gulf countries, according to the customer scope outlined in the partnership announcement. Infinia is part of Sirius International Holding, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company group, according to Tenstorrent's description of its partner in the project.
The next steps in the partnership with Infinia include developing local solutions to run sensitive AI workloads, according to Tenstorrent's announcement. The solutions are called "Secure AI in a Box" and form part of the joint work on sovereign infrastructure. The project's scope links running sensitive workloads locally with serving the customers targeted by the partnership in Gulf countries. In parallel, the new funding is intended to support commercial-scale manufacturing, global expansion and deployment of the company's servers, according to the stated purpose of the round. The production step reported by Reuters is an increase in output of "Galaxy" servers, alongside the local solutions initiative Tenstorrent announced with its Abu Dhabi partner.