OpenAI’s cozy partner Cerebras is on track for a blockbuster IPO

Within the long-running saga that’s Cerebras Techniques’ IPO, the end line is lastly in sight. The AI chipmaker stated on Monday that it’s getting ready to promote 28 million shares at $115 to $125 a share. This might elevate $3.5 billion and provides it a $26.6 billion market cap on the excessive finish.

That might be a pleasant bump in simply a few months for the late traders who piled into its $1 billion Sequence H at a $23 billion valuation in February. It could even be a boon to OpenAI and some of its executives.

Ought to Cerebras pull off an preliminary public providing at or above the excessive finish, this would be the largest tech IPO of 2026 up to now. It may additionally show the urge for food for even greater blockbuster choices within the wings, like SpaceX and probably OpenAI and Anthropic.

Cerebras provides an AI-specific chip known as the Wafer-Scale Engine 3 that challenges GPU-based AI chips. Cerebras says its chip is quicker for inference whereas utilizing much less energy than such rivals. Inference is the compute wanted to course of person prompts.

A protracted listing of top-name traders stands to realize from a wholesome IPO. Rick Gerson’s Alpha Wave; Benchmark (by way of companion Eric Vishria); Lior Susan’s Eclipse; Constancy; and Basis Capital (by way of companion Steve Vassallo) are its largest shareholders with greater than a 5% stake, in keeping with the corporate’s SEC submitting.

The corporate says its listing of traders additionally consists of 1789 Capital, Abu Dhabi Development Fund, Abu Dhabi’s G42, Altimeter, AMD, Atreides Administration, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures, Tiger World, Valor Fairness Companions, and VY Capital.

Plus, Cerebras names on its web site an extended listing of angel traders, too. These embody OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI founder and president Greg Brockman, former OpenAI chief scientist (now founding father of his personal AI startup) Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI board member and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, Solar Microsystems and Arista co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and several other different tech luminaries.

Whereas Sam Altman’s stake wasn’t giant sufficient to reveal within the SEC filings, he was quoted in its S-1. That’s as a result of Cerebras’ relationship with OpenAI is much more noteworthy than its angel traders.

This relationship was even introduced as proof by Elon Musk in his lawsuit with OpenAI. OpenAI had at one level thought of buying Cerebras, in keeping with authorized filings by Musk’s attorneys that declare he was unaware of the entire OpenAI execs’ private investments within the firm.

That deal by no means occurred, however OpenAI did turn out to be one among Cerebras’ largest clients. Actually, in December, OpenAI loaned Cerebras $1 billion, secured by warrants that permit OpenAI to purchase over 33 million shares, the S-1 discloses. So whereas OpenAI isn’t a big shareholder now, it may turn out to be one.

Cerebras had hoped to go public in 2024 however was delayed resulting from a federal evaluate of an funding from Abu Dhabi-based cloud supplier G42, which was (and nonetheless is, the chip firm says) a serious buyer. That IPO try was in the end shelved.

A yr later, Cerebras sought to lift extra cash. In September, it raised $1.1 billion at an $8.1 billion post-money valuation led by Constancy and Atreides. Just a few months later, Cerebras signed its new multi-year settlement price extra than $10 billion with OpenAI that included the mortgage and warrants. In February, it raised the $1 billion Sequence H, its final mega spherical.

Ought to traders eat up the IPO, then OpenAI and its executives stand to realize in additional methods than one.

That appears possible. Banks are already fielding $10 billion price of orders for the $3.5 billion price of shares on provide, Bloomberg reviews. That form of demand signifies that the corporate will possible value its shares even greater than this introduced vary, elevating much more money for itself and extra worth for its traders.