Leer en español: Etched podría volver a duplicar su valor, a $40 mil millones. ¿Cuál es el precio real?

Etched, a startup that designs chips for running AI models, has received offers from investors that would value it at $40 billion or more, TechCrunch reported on 5 October, citing people familiar with the company (TechCrunch). Top-tier investors offered around $40 billion; lesser-known backers offered up to $50 billion. The talks are early, terms may change, and Etched declined to comment.

What happened

The speed is the story. On 23 July, Etched raised $300 million at a $10.3 billion valuation in a round led by Sequoia. On 18 August, 26 days later, it raised $700 million at $21 billion, led by trading firm Jane Street (TNW). If a round closes at $40 billion, the price would have roughly quadrupled in under three months (our arithmetic).

Investors are betting on demand for AI inference, the work of running models after they are trained. TNW reported more than $1 billion in contracts signed as of June. Etched also says its chips beat Nvidia’s on speed and cost, a claim TechCrunch notes it has not independently verified.

Why people are arguing about it

Supporters see a rare challenger to Nvidia with real orders, and say the best companies are worth paying up for. The worry is about what a headline valuation actually means. TechCrunch points out that hot startups increasingly raise back-to-back rounds that work like one financing split into two prices.

That practice is already contested. In June, Mercor co-founder Brendan Foody accused some investors of “dual pricing”: putting most of their money in at a low price and a little at a much higher one, so the company can announce the bigger number. He said founders sometimes “misrepresent this to their employees.” Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire answered that it had happened about five times in his seven years there and that “VC is a repeated game, so it just doesn’t make sense for us to try to mislead people” (TechCrunch). Nobody has said Etched’s rounds were priced this way.

What it means if you’re building a startup

The headline valuation is not the price you got. What matters is how much each investor paid per share, and on what terms. If one round has two prices, your employees’ options should be judged against the blended value, not the press release. An appraiser quoted by TechCrunch made the same point. Before you celebrate a big number, ask what the real price is. The same trap shows up in smaller rounds through the option pool: the hidden cut in your valuation.

Sources

• TechCrunch, “Etched fields funding offers at $40B+ valuation, sources say” by Marina Temkin, 5 Oct 2026: techcrunch.com. Offer figures come from unnamed sources; not confirmed by Etched.
• TNW, “Etched raises $700M at a $21B valuation led by Jane Street” by Ana-Maria Stanciuc, 18 Aug 2026: thenextweb.com
• TechCrunch, “Mercor’s Brendan Foody calls out Sequoia over ‘dual-pricing’ valuation tricks” by Marina Temkin, 8 Jun 2026: techcrunch.com

Written by Fabian Cisneros. Educational only — not investment, legal or tax advice. See the full disclaimer.