Rain AI, a San Francisco, California-based AI chip startup, raised $8.1m in Series A Extension round.
Epic Venture Partners made the investment.
Led by CEO William Passo, Rain AI creates energy-efficient AI hardware using in-memory compute technology, enabling advanced AI models to run locally on various devices. The company is addressing this core problem via its in-memory compute proprietary technology that will bring the AI technologies of tomorrow, from personalized robotics to putting models the size of ChatGPT on your phone.
The company is now in talks with major hyperscalers and semiconductor companies to license its IP, with plans to launch its first chip ready for customers in 2025. The use-cases will span across multiple industries, including drones, VR goggles, smartphones, robotics, wearables, and more.
Founded in 2017, Rain AI quickly gained recognition after being accepted into Y-Combinator in 2018. The company secured a $5m seed round led by Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, and subsequently relocated to Silicon Valley to further its research and development efforts. In 2022, Rain AI raised a $25m Series A round. The company has now raised over $40m from notable investors including Sam Altman, co-founder/CEO of OpenAI; Jeff Rothschild, a founding engineer at Facebook; Daniel Gross, co-founder of AI startup Cue (acquired by Apple); Oliver Cameron, Founder of autonomous vehicle startup Voyage (Acquired by Cruise); Jaan Tallinn, founding engineer at Skype; and Scott Gray, an AI hardware expert and early member of OpenAI’s technical team.
Rain AI has also assembled an advisory board which includes Dr. Jackson Hu, the former CEO & Chairman of UMC, and Dr. Arijit Raychowdhury, an expert of in-memory compute and Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Georgia Tech university.
FinSMEs
27/03/2024