Outburst! AI chip unicorn considers **net worth!
Top tip: On February 18, foreign media said that Graphcore (Graphcore), a British company dedicated to capturing the wave of artificial intelligence, was preparing to sell it to a foreign-funded company.
Industry sources say Graphcore is in talks with some of the big technology companies to raise new capital to cover the huge losses.
Among the alleged buyers are the UK's intellectual property giant ARM, Japan's SoftBank Corp., and Open AI. All three declined to comment, and a person familiar with the matter said Eminem was not involved in the talks. The process of this acquisition is not yet known, and it is likely to take place in conjunction with separate financing talks.
Founded in 2016 with cloud AI chips at its core, Graphcore is one of Europe's hottest startups in the last few years, and at the same time Nvidia's largest"Competitors"。It has already received $70 million in funding from investors such as Microsoft and Sequoia Capital, and in a funding round in late 2020, it was valued at $28 billion. In a financing some time ago, the company's market capitalization reached 28 billion yuan.
But since last year, Graphcore has been in an existential crisis, with the company cutting heavily in China and reducing costs by laying off employees and closing offices around the world.
As AI technology is under increasing scrutiny, any transaction to foreign bidders will be scrutinized by the department. Since systems like ChatGPT have already been developed, technology companies and ** are spending billions of dollars to securely store thousands of processors.
In 2022, Graphcore reported revenue of $270,000, down 46% year-on-year, with a loss of $2046 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11%. Last October, the company announced that it needed new capital to keep the business afloat.
At the end of last year, Graphcore owned 1$5.7 billion in cash reserves, while in May it needed additional capital. In its financial statements, there was a statement about the continuation of business, which it said was in talks with a potential investor but was considered to be having difficulties in raising funds.
According to the company's financial report to the registry, the company had expected to complete a new fundraising by the third quarter of last year, but the final results have not yet been finalized.
Later, an error was corrected in an updated financial report that indicated that the company had previously expected a grant in the third quarter of 2024.
Chrysalis, a London-listed investment**, unveiled an unnamed asset in December. A few weeks later, the company had doubled its value at Graphcore, and analysts at Zeus Capital tied it to the Graphcore deal. According to investor estimates, the market value of the graphic nuclear company is 580 million yuan.
In recent weeks, investment manager Bailey Gifford has doubled his value at Graphcore.
Both companies have previously cut their investments in graphics processors due to the fact that the company has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, but its position in the AI chip market is not secure.
In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has forced chip companies to invest in high-end chips. An analyst at John Peddie Research pointed out in a report some time ago: "The total financing of graphics core companies has exceeded 600 million yuan, but to compete with Intel, NVIDIA, AMD and other companies, the capital required will be doubled." ”
Gelcott, Ballyjford and Cherycelis declined to comment.