BlackRock Leads $250M Funding In AI Computing Startup

Artificial intelligence startup SambaNova Systems on Tuesday said it had raised $250 million in a Series C funding round.

What Happened

The funding round was led by financial giant BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) and saw participation from SambaNova's previous investors including Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) venture arm GV, Walden International, and WRVI Capital.

"Raising [$250 million] in this funding round with support from new and existing investors puts us in a unique category of capitalization," CEO Rodrigo Liang said in a statement. "This enables us to further extend our market leadership in enterprise computing."

SambaNova, which provides the infrastructure for running AI and computer-intensive applications, had previously announced a $150 million Series B funding led by Intel and GV.

Price Action

BlackRock's shares closed 4.17% lower at $506 on Tuesday.

Intel closed 3.29% lower at $59.73 and inched higher in the after-hours session at $59.91.

Alphabet's Class A shares closed 2.36% lower at $1,386.32 and traded 0.9% higher in the after-hours session at $1,398.79.

Class C shares closed 2.33% lower at $1,388.45. The stock traded 0.47% higher at $1,395.00 in the after-hours market.