Back

Rivos

Company Overview

Rivos Inc. is a high-performance RISC-V system startup founded in May 2021. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with additional offices in Austin, TX; Fort Collins, CO; Portland, OR; Bangalore, India; Cambridge, UK; and Hsinchu, Taiwan. Rivos aims to build industry-leading power-efficient, high-performance, secure server solutions based on RISC-V architecture, using workload-defined hardware.

The company’s name “Rivos” comes from combining “RISC-V” and “Open Source”, reflecting their commitment to the RISC-V ecosystem and open-source development. Rivos has assembled a world-class team of silicon, software, and platform designers to pursue its mission.

Products Overview

Rivos is developing a complete solution encompassing silicon, platform, and software:

  1. Optimized chips combining RISC-V CPUs and a Data Parallel Accelerator (a GPGPU optimized for large language models and data analytics). These chips feature tight integration of CPU and parallel computation, sharing a uniform memory across DDR DRAM and HBM, ideal for today’s models and databases that need terabytes of memory.

  2. A reference multi-chip OCP Modular Hardware System (DC-MHS) server following the M-DNO guidelines.

  3. A full firmware-to-application open software stack. This includes a UEFI and Linux base that supports standard frameworks such as PyTorch (including eager mode), JAX, Spark, and PostgreSQL. This allows applications and models to be recompiled without needing redesign.

The company’s products are designed to support the intense requirements of large language models and data analytics that are reshaping the enterprise computing landscape. Rivos aims to provide immediate TCO benefits by allowing customers to easily deploy their existing workloads.

Founding Team

While the complete founding team is not explicitly listed, key leadership positions include:

  1. Puneet Kumar - Founder and CEO
  2. Mark Hayter - Founder and CSO
  3. Belli Kuttanna - Founder and CTO

Other key leadership roles include:

  • Amit Parikh - CFO (Outforce LLC)
  • Jen Li - Chief of Staff
  • Tse-Yu Yeh - VP of Silicon Engineering
  • Andrew de los Reyes - Software Lead

Problem and Market Fit

Rivos is addressing the growing demand for high-performance, power-efficient computing solutions capable of handling the intense requirements of large language models and data analytics in enterprise environments. The company’s focus on RISC-V architecture and open-source development aims to provide a more flexible and customizable alternative to existing server solutions.

By offering a complete solution from silicon to software, Rivos is positioning itself to meet the evolving needs of enterprises dealing with increasingly complex and data-intensive workloads. The emphasis on power efficiency and high performance addresses two critical concerns in the data center market: energy consumption and computational capacity.

Business Model

While specific details of Rivos’ business model are not provided, it appears to be based on developing and selling integrated hardware and software solutions for enterprise customers. This likely includes:

  1. Sales of RISC-V based server hardware
  2. Licensing or sales of their software stack
  3. Potential consulting or support services for implementation and optimization

The company’s focus on allowing customers to easily deploy existing workloads suggests a strategy of lowering barriers to adoption and providing immediate benefits to customers switching to their platform.

Funding and Runway

Rivos recently announced that it has raised more than $250 million in its oversubscribed Series A-3 funding round. Key details of this funding round include:

  • Matrix Capital Management was the largest investor in this round.
  • New investors included Intel Capital, MediaTek, Cambium Capital, CIDC, Capital TEN, Hotung Venture Group, Singularity Capital, Cathay Venture, CDIB Capital, Compal Electronics, Delta Electronics Capital, and others.
  • Existing investors, including Walden Catalyst, Dell Technologies Capital, Koch Disruptive Technologies, VentureTech Alliance, Factory HQ, and Nepenthe Capital, continued or increased their contributions.

The funding will be used to: - Tapeout the company’s first silicon product - Meet increasing customer demand - Expand manufacturing operations - Enhance platform hardware and software engineering - Bolster support functions

This substantial funding round suggests strong investor confidence in Rivos’ vision and potential market impact.

Competitive Landscape

While specific competitors are not mentioned, Rivos is likely competing in a landscape that includes:

  1. Traditional x86 server manufacturers (e.g., Intel, AMD)
  2. ARM-based server solutions (e.g., Amazon’s Graviton, Ampere Computing)
  3. Other emerging RISC-V based solutions

Rivos’ differentiation appears to be its focus on a complete, integrated solution optimized for large language models and data analytics, combined with the flexibility and potential cost advantages of RISC-V architecture.

Customers

No specific customers are mentioned in the provided information. Given the company’s focus on enterprise solutions for large language models and data analytics, potential customers likely include:

  1. Cloud service providers
  2. Large technology companies working on AI and machine learning
  3. Financial institutions with significant data processing needs
  4. Research institutions and universities

Relevant News

The most recent significant news is the $250+ million Series A-3 funding round, which demonstrates strong investor interest and provides Rivos with substantial resources to bring its first products to market.

Additionally, Rivos is actively contributing to the RISC-V ecosystem: - Engineers from Rivos are leading several key initiatives at RISC-V International. - The company is working closely with open-source RISC-V software developers through the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) initiative. - Rivos is integrating OpenTitan, a RISC-V based root of trust solution, directly into its system silicon, emphasizing its commitment to security.

Rivos continues to expand its team globally, with job openings across various engineering disciplines in multiple locations worldwide.