MatX, a startup focused on developing chips that support large language models, has secured a significant $80 million Series A funding round, according to three sources familiar with the deal. This investment comes less than a year after the company raised its $25 million seed round, demonstrating the growing interest in AI-powered chip technology.

The Series A round was led by Spark Capital, which valued MatX at a pre-money valuation in the mid-$200 million range and a post-money valuation of the low $300 million range, as reported by a person who reviewed the deal. This substantial investment underscores the confidence of investors in MatX's mission to address the shortage of chips designed to handle AI workloads.

Co-founded by Mike Gunter and Reiner Pope, both veterans of Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) team, MatX aims to provide high-performance chips at affordable prices. The startup's chips are specifically designed to handle AI workloads of at least 7 billion and ideally 20 billion or more activated parameters, making them well-suited for large-scale language model applications.

MatX's advanced interconnect technology enables its chips to scale efficiently to large clusters, allowing for faster and more efficient processing of AI workloads. The company's goal is to make its processors ten times better at training large language models and delivering results than NVIDIA's GPUs, as stated by Gunter and Pope in an interview with Bloomberg.

The seed round, announced last December, was led by high-profile AI angel investors Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, and Daniel Gross, who previously ran search and AI at Apple. Friedman and Gross frequently co-invest in AI startups, and Gross has since co-founded a new AI company, Safe Superintelligence, with former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sustkever.

The increased interest in AI-powered chip startups is evident in the recent funding rounds of companies like Groq, which saw its valuation nearly triple to $2.8 billion in August. This surge in investment is driven by the growing demand for NVIDIA's processors and the need for more efficient and affordable AI processing solutions.

Despite the significant investment, MatX and Spark Capital declined to comment on the deal. However, the funding round is a clear indication of the confidence of investors in MatX's innovative approach to AI chip design and its potential to disrupt the industry.

As the AI boom continues to drive innovation and investment in the tech industry, MatX's Series A funding round marks a significant milestone in the development of AI-powered chip technology. With its sights set on revolutionizing the way large language models are processed, MatX is poised to play a key role in shaping the future of AI computing.