US-based semiconductor producer Astera Labs secured $50m on Monday in a series C round featuring chipmaker Intel’s corporate venturing unit, Intel Capital.
Financial services firm Fidelity Management and Research led the round, which included Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Avignor Willenz Group, Sutter Hill Ventures, VentureTech Alliance and GlobalLink1. It valued the company at $950m post-money.
Founded in 2017, Asteraproduces fabless semiconductors tailored to improve connectivity and help remove bottlenecks related to high-bandwidth usage for enterprise data.
The proceeds from the round will be used to scale the company’s operations and further develop its product lines as it sees tailwinds in the increasing demand for artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.
Intel Capital also took part in Astera’s April 2020 series B round, which raised an undisclosed amount and which featured Sutton Hill Ventures, Avigdor Willenz and Ron Jankov – the last two the respective owners of Avigdor Willenz Group and GlobalLink 1.
According to a regulatory filing, the company had received approximately $6.3m in funding from 16 unnamed investors in 2018.
Jitendra Mohan, chief executive of Astera Labs, said: “We are thrilled to join forces with Fidelity, Atreides and Valor to cement our leadership position in intelligent cloud connectivity solutions and usher Astera Labs into the next growth phase of our company.
“With this investment and increased collaboration with our manufacturing partners, we will rapidly scale our worldwide operations to satisfy incredible customer demand and launch multiple new product lines to solve the industry’s most pressing connectivity challenges.”
