Chip startup Rivos has raised $250 million in a Series A-3 funding round.

The round saw participation from new and existing investors, including Intel Capital, MediaTek, Walden Catalyst, Dell Technologies Capital, and Koch Disruptive Technologies.

Romit Shah, a representative of the largest investor Matrix Capital Management, has joined the board of Rivos.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Santa Clara, Rivos said the funding would be used to manufacture the company’s first AI server chip based on RISC-V architecture.

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established RISC principles, which is provided under open-source licenses that do not require fees.

The planned server chip will combine a CPU and an AI accelerator and be optimized for large language models and data analytics.

“The rapid changes in LLMs and the merger with the data analytics stack makes it vital that accelerators be easy to program and debug, and that data can seamlessly move between CPU and accelerator. Rivos addresses this need through our recompile-not-redesign approach,” said Puneet Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Rivos.

The successful funding round represents something of a turnaround for the company.

In 2022, Apple filed a lawsuit against Rivos alleging the company had hired a number of the tech giant’s former engineers and had then used confidential information to develop rival chips. Rivos denied the allegations and countersued. But, while fighting the lawsuit, the company reportedly laid off around six percent of its workforce and delayed a planned $400 billion Series A fundraising round.

Apple ultimately settled its lawsuit in February 2024.

In the statement announcing its latest funding round, the company said it is currently hiring “engineering talent across multiple disciplines.”