Positron Secures $23.5M to Expand U.S.-Made AI Chip Production

Positron, a company specializing in AI inference technology, has secured $23.5 million in funding from investors including Flume Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, and Resilience Reserve. This funding will support the expansion of Positron's production of energy-efficient AI chips, which are manufactured entirely in the United States.

Positron's AI chips are designed to provide a cost-effective alternative to Nvidia's hardware, achieving 3.5 times better performance per dollar and greater power efficiency. The company's Atlas systems utilize a memory-optimized architecture, supporting trillion-parameter models and offering compatibility with Hugging Face and OpenAI APIs. These systems deliver faster inference and lower power consumption compared to Nvidia's H100 GPUs.

The company is led by CEO Mitesh Agrawal, who joins co-founders Thomas Sohmers and Edward Kmett. Positron's focus on domestic manufacturing aims to reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, positioning the company as a key player in the U.S. AI hardware market. The funding will also aid in the development of Positron's second-generation accelerators, expected to launch in 2026.