Etched, a San Jose-based AI chip startup building GPU-free inference hardware, raised $300 million in a Series C at a $10.3 billion post-money valuation, led by Sequoia with participation from a16z, Jane Street, SK Hynix, and Diffusion. The round underscores a push to challenge Nvidia by delivering purpose-built inference chips that optimize transformer-based AI models and run without GPUs. Proceeds will fund aggressive production scaling and customer deployments, including an 80,000-square-foot facility near headquarters and a 10-megawatt Milpitas site to house an NPI lab and in-house SMT line. Etched has attracted high-profile backers and has touted roughly $1 billion in orders, signaling rapid commercial traction as it moves from testing to large-scale deployments. The valuation marks one of the highest for a Sequoia-led Series C, with insiders discussing potential further rounds that could push the company’s value even higher as demand for frontier-scale inference grows.