(Bloomberg) -- Cerebras Systems Inc., a startup making semiconductors optimized for artificial intelligence uses, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering.
The Silicon Valley firm has submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a statement Thursday that didn’t disclose further details.
Cerebras has picked Citigroup Inc. as the lead bank on its IPO, people familiar with the matter have said. The company is targeting a listing in the second half of the year, and may seek a valuation in the IPO that would value it above the $4 billion figure achieved in its 2021 funding round, Bloomberg News reported in January.
A first-time share sale by Cerebras would come as US IPOs continue along a steady path to recovery, with nearly $30 billion raised so far this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s about double the volume for the same period in 2023, even though the level of activity is still below the pre-pandemic average.
CS-3, Cerebras’ flagship system, is optimized to handle AI computing workloads and can be clustered together to power AI supercomputers, according to the company’s website. Cerebras’ products are used by corporations, research institutions, and governments to develop proprietary models and train open-source models, a statement in May showed.
Cerebras raised $250 million in a series F financing round in 2021, valuing it at over $4 billion, according to a statement at the time. The round was led by Alpha Wave Ventures, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund and G42. Cerebras’s existing investors include Altimeter Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue Management, the statement showed.
--With assistance from Katie Roof.
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