NonPublic raises AUD $118m for Tenstorrent AI chipmaker

NonPublic has raised about AUD $118 million from Australian investors for AI chipmaker Tenstorrent as part of the company's USD $1.5 billion Series E funding round.

The round valued the US-based company at USD $6.2 billion and gave Australian wholesale investors access through vehicles operated by the Sydney-based private markets platform. Direct participation in similar private technology deals would typically require commitments of about USD $1 million to USD $5 million.

Tenstorrent is an AI compute company led by Chief Executive Officer Jim Keller, a chip industry executive known for previous processor design work at Apple, AMD and Tesla. It develops RISC-V-based AI processors and related systems, and licenses CPU and AI core designs to customers including Samsung and LG.

The funding round was led by Houston-based private equity firm Trace Capital. Other participants included ARK Invest, Citadel, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, Cadence Design Systems, Sandisk, Tether and XTX Ventures.

For NonPublic, the deal adds another large private technology company to the list it has made available to Australian investors before any stock market listing. Previous offerings have included SpaceX, Perplexity and Groq.

Private market access

The transaction points to continued demand for exposure to private AI companies as some high-growth technology businesses stay off public markets for longer. That trend has shifted more of the value-creation phase into private fundraising rounds, where access is often limited to large institutions, family offices and wealthy investors.

NonPublic operates in that part of the market by offering eligible Australian investors access to selected private company rounds. In this case, the platform placed local investors alongside global institutions already active in US late-stage venture and growth financing.

The Tenstorrent investment gives its clients access to a business in one of the most closely watched segments of the AI market: designing the chips and systems needed to run large language models and video-generation workloads. Tenstorrent said it would use the new funds to deploy its Galaxy servers at scale.

The latest financing also underlines strong investor appetite for alternatives to Nvidia-led infrastructure exposure. Start-ups and established technology groups have drawn growing interest from investors seeking stakes in businesses that supply processors, servers and core architecture for AI systems.

Before this round, Tenstorrent had already attracted backing from strategic and financial investors including Bezos Expeditions, Samsung, LG Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group and Fidelity. The company operates from Santa Clara, Austin, Toronto, Belgrade, Tokyo and Bangalore.

Investor demand

Milan Reinartz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NonPublic, said the lengthening path to public markets was changing when investors can participate in company growth.

"Next generation AI tech companies are staying private for longer, so a lot of their growth now happens before investors can gain any exposure. There aren't a great number of options for Australian investors to back these businesses during this period, which means that by the time they finally access the companies, much of the value has already been created. Creating a channel for eligible Australians to invest alongside the world's major institutions before they list closes a gap that has kept Australian investors on the sidelines during what is typically the most valuable stage of a company's growth. The businesses building on AI want control over their computing power at whatever scale they need. This is exactly what Tenstorrent offers by building the chips and computers that run AI. We're excited to back Jim and the Tenstorrent team, and we will continue to open opportunities like this to Australian investors ahead of public markets," said Reinartz.

His comments reflect a wider debate in investment markets about who gets access to late-stage private growth rounds. As more technology companies remain private for longer, retail investors often do not get exposure until an initial public offering or another liquidity event, by which point valuations may already be substantially higher.

For Australian investors, the issue is more pronounced because direct access to large US private deals can be difficult without local intermediaries and significant minimum ticket sizes. Platforms such as NonPublic are seeking to fill that gap for investors who meet wholesale investor requirements.

Tenstorrent Chief Executive Officer Jim Keller kept his remarks focused on the company's approach to AI infrastructure.

"The future of compute is open, scalable, and owned by the people building on it. Our investors believe in that model too and we appreciate their support," said Keller.