Andrew Feldman, co-founder and CEO of Cerebras Systems, speaks at the Collision conference in Toronto on June 20, 2024.
Ramsey Cardi | Sports file | collision | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence chip startup Cerebras Systems on Monday filed its prospectus for an initial public offering, with plans to trade under the ticker symbol “CBRS” on the Nasdaq.
Competes with Cerebras Nvidiawhose GPUs are the industry's choice for training and running AI models. Cerebras says on its website that its WSE-3 chip comes with more cores and memory than Nvidia's popular H100 chip. It's also a physically larger segment. In addition to selling chips, Cerebras offers cloud-based services that rely on its own computing clusters.
Cerebras had a net loss of $66.6 million in the first six months of 2024 on sales of $136.4 million, according to the filing. In the first six months of 2023, the company had a net loss of $77.8 million and $8.7 million in sales.
For the full year of 2023, Cerebras reported a net loss of $127.2 million and revenue of $78.7 million.
The company reported a net loss of $50.9 million on revenue of $69.8 million in the second quarter, compared to a loss of $26.2 million on revenue of $5.7 million in the same period a year earlier.
The company said operating expenses increased this year in part due to higher employee costs to support revenue growth.
AI chips are a growing and crowded market. Cloud service providers Amazon, Google and Microsoft They have developed their own artificial intelligence chips. Group 42, a UAE-based artificial intelligence company that counts Microsoft as an investor, accounted for 83% of Cerebras' revenue last year, the company said.
Cerebras' WSE-3 chip is one example of new silicon from startups designed to power and train artificial intelligence.
Cerebras Systems
In addition to Nvidia, Cerebras points to AMD, Intel, Microsoft and Google as competitors, “as well as internally developed custom application-specific ICs and a variety of private companies.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company manufactures Cerebras chips. Cerebros warned investors that any potential supply chain disruptions could hurt the company.
Cerebras was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Andrew Feldman, the startup's co-founder and CEO, has sold server startup SeaMicro to… AMD For $355 million in 2012.
In 2021, the company said it was valued at more than $4 billion in a $250 million financing round. In May, G42 committed to purchasing $1.43 billion worth of orders from Cerebras before March 2025, according to the filing. G42 currently owns less than 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares, and the company has the option to purchase more depending on the amount of Cerebras products it purchases.
The technology IPO market was generally sparse in 2024, as higher interest rates pushed investors toward lucrative assets. Social media app Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March, followed by data management software maker Rubrik in April. Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve went ahead with its first interest rate cut since 2020, fueling gains in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite.
Neither Morgan Stanley nor Goldman Sachs, the two leading technology investment banks, are participating in this deal. Citigroup and Barclays are leading the offering.
The largest investor in Cerebras is venture firm Foundation Capital, followed by Benchmark and Eclipse Ventures. Alpha Wave, Coatue and Altimeter each own at least 5% as well, according to the filing. Other investors include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. The only person who owns 5% or more is Feldman.
Watch: Cerebras CEO: Our inference offering is 20 times faster than Nvidia's and a fraction of the price
