Upstart chipmaker Innovium, on brink of unicorn valuation, seeks funding
Summary
A data-center chip specialist called Fungible , led by Juniper Networks founder Pradeep Sindhu, raised a $200 million Series C in June with backing from Walden Riverwood and Redline Capital , both of which have invested in Innovium. Datera CloudVelox and MarkLogic also compete in the VC-backed cloud-driven data market.Now, with a new round of funding in the works, Innovium is nearing unicorn status after just a few years in business.The developer of semiconductors designed for data centers seeks to raise up to $50 million in Series E funding, a regulatory filing shows, in a deal that would give Innovium a valuation of up to $925 million, according to a PitchBook estimate. Its not known which investors are participating in the companys new round.Rajiv Khemani, Innoviums CEO and one of its founders, previously spent five years at Intel and also served as COO of Cavium , a chip company specializing in cloud and mobile applications. Khemanis two co-founders, Puneet Agarwal and Mohammad Issa, are former Broadcom senior engineers.In September, Innovium launched its newest switch chip, the Teralynx 5, which has applications ranging from 1.2 terabits to 6.4 terabits per second for large scale operators, enterprise and edge data centers.Innovium has pulled in about $182 million in total funding. In addition to Redline and Walden, its investors include Qualcomm Ventures Greylock Partners and S-Cubed Capital.Heres a look at Innoviums fundraising and valuation history, according to the PitchBook Platform:: $15M round | $33.3M valuation: $31.6M | $98.5M: $38.3M | $253M: $77M | $637M: $20M | $715MPriyamvada Mathur contributed to this article.