Benchmark Capital Deploys $225M in Special Purpose Vehicles to Back Cerebras' $1B Series H
AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems secured $1 billion in Series H funding at a $23 billion valuation this week, representing a nearly threefold increase from its $8.1 billion valuation achieved just six months prior. While Tiger Global led the round, a significant portion of the capital came from early-stage backer Benchmark Capital, which deployed at least $225 million through specially structured investment vehicles.
According to sources familiar with the transaction, Benchmark established two separate funds, both designated as 'Benchmark Infrastructure,' specifically to facilitate this investment in Cerebras. This strategic move is particularly notable given Benchmark's deliberate policy of maintaining fund sizes below $450 million. The Silicon Valley venture firm initially backed the Sunnyvale-based company in 2016, leading Cerebras' $27 million Series A round when the startup was in its infancy.
Wafer-Scale Architecture: Technical Differentiation
Cerebras' competitive advantage lies in its Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) architecture, which fundamentally differs from traditional chip design paradigms. The company's flagship processor, announced in 2024, features the following specifications:
• Physical dimensions: approximately 8.5 inches per side
• Transistor count: 4 trillion transistors on a single silicon die
• Manufacturing approach: utilizes nearly an entire 300mm silicon wafer
• Core count: 900,000 specialized cores operating in parallel
Unlike conventional semiconductor manufacturing, where multiple smaller chips are extracted from a single wafer, Cerebras leverages almost the entire circular wafer substrate. This architectural approach eliminates inter-chip data transfer bottlenecks inherent in traditional GPU cluster configurations, enabling AI inference workloads to execute more than 20 times faster than competing solutions, according to company benchmarks.
Strategic Partnership with OpenAI
The funding round follows Cerebras' announcement of a multi-year agreement with OpenAI valued at over $10 billion. Under the partnership, which extends through 2028, Cerebras will provision 750 megawatts of computing infrastructure to support OpenAI's inference workloads and reduce latency for complex AI queries. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman maintains an investor position in Cerebras.
Regulatory Challenges and IPO Timeline
Cerebras' path to public markets has been complicated by regulatory scrutiny surrounding its commercial relationship with G42, a UAE-based AI firm that represented 87% of the company's revenue through H1 2024. G42's historical connections to Chinese technology entities triggered a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), resulting in the withdrawal of Cerebras' initial IPO filing in early 2025.
Following G42's removal from Cerebras' cap table in late 2024, the company has cleared regulatory obstacles and is now targeting a Q2 2026 public debut, positioning itself as a direct competitor to Nvidia in the AI accelerator market.
Sources:
