Euclyd raised $230 million from Samsung and three other firms whose names sound like they were generated by a private equity algorithm. The Dutch startup makes chips that compete with Nvidia. Not the same chips. Different chips. Chips that do the same thing but aren't Nvidia chips.
Samsung co-led the round. Samsung makes chips. Samsung also invests in companies that make chips that compete with the chips made by companies Samsung competes with. This is called strategy. Or hedging. Or spending money because you have it and the alternative is admitting you don't know what to do with it.
The GPU alternatives market is booming according to people who need the GPU alternatives market to be booming. Nvidia controls roughly 90% of the AI chip market. Euclyd controls roughly 0% of the AI chip market. The gap between these numbers represents what venture capitalists call opportunity and what everyone else calls math.
Retail traders will read this headline and think they've discovered alpha. They'll search for a Euclyd ticker. There isn't one. They'll buy Samsung instead. Samsung is up 0.3% this month. They'll buy Nvidia. Nvidia is up 180% this year. They'll feel smart. They'll tell their friends. Their friends will nod politely and change the subject.
Somerset Capital Partners and the Scaleup Europe Fund also participated. These are real organizations with real money and real fiduciary duties to real limited partners who will receive real quarterly reports explaining why investing in the eighth company trying to dethrone Nvidia made sense at the time.
Euclyd will use the funding to hire engineers and build chips and tell journalists their chips are different. The engineers will be talented. The chips will probably work. Different will remain different. Different has never beaten better, but it has occasionally beaten cheaper, which is what everyone's really betting on here anyway.
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