AI chip startup Rivos is looking to raise up to $500 million at a valuation of $2 billion, according to a report from The Information.

Should the fund raise go ahead, it would bring the total raised by the company to more than $870m. To date, the startup has raised $370m, the majority of which came from a $250 million Series A-3 funding round that Rivos closed in April 2024.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Santa Clara, Rivos has been developing an AI inferencing chip based on RISC-V architecture - an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established RISC-V principles, which is provided under open-source licenses that do not require fees.

The company completed the design of its GPU earlier this year and has handed it off to TSMC for trial production. Rivos could release its AI chip as early as 2026, the report said, adding that according to “four people with direct knowledge of the matter,” the processing unit could make a dent in Nvidia’s dominant share of the AI chip market, as it is also looking to develop software that can translate CUDA to run Rivos’ chips.

Two of the people cited by the news outlet said Rivos is also planning to collaborate with a “major publicly traded chip company” for future chip designs, and is close to finalizing a deal to sell chips to the unnamed partner.

Rivos did not respond to The Information’s request for comment.

The successful raises represent 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 million Series A fundraising round.

Apple ultimately settled its lawsuit in February 2024.

Rivos currently has around 450 employees, but is still ramping up hiring, the report said.