'Nvidia Competitor' Cerebras, Races Towards IPO with 39 Trillion Won Target Market Cap

'Nvidia Competitor' Cerebras, Races Towards IPO with 39 Trillion Won Target Market Cap

IPO offering price per share of $115-$125... "Appears to be pushing for listing before SpaceX IPO"

AI chip startup Cerebras, which challenges Nvidia with a chip the size of a giant wafer, has set its target IPO valuation at $26.62 billion (approximately 39 trillion won).

Cerebras announced in an amended IPO application submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 4th (local time) that it plans to offer 28 million shares of Class A common stock in this initial public offering (IPO).

Including Class B shares already held by founders and existing investors, the total number of shares outstanding upon completion of the listing will be 212,965,381 shares.

Applying the target offering price of $115-$125 per share, the market capitalization after listing will be up to $26.62 billion.

This is an increase from the $23 billion valuation recognized in a funding round in early February, with the addition of new public offering shares.

After the listing, the value of the approximately 10.25 million shares held by CEO Andrew Feldman is expected to be $1.28 billion, but CEO Feldman does not plan to sell any shares in this IPO.

Cerebras is a startup that champions its Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE) technology, which turns a single wafer into one AI chip.

It is characterized by equipping fast S-RAM instead of D-RAM-based High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to increase AI inference speed.

Cerebras's revenue last year was $510 million, growing 75.7% from $290 million in 2024. During the same period, net income also turned to a surplus of $1.38 from a loss of $9.9 the previous year.

The current IPO application process is proceeding at an unusually rapid pace. Just half a month after submitting the initial application on the 17th of last month, both the number of shares to be offered and the target offering price, which are key listing conditions, have been finalized.

Cerebras's rapid progression of the process is interpreted as an intention to list before Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX.

Lukas Muehlbauer, an analyst at IPOX Research, told Reuters that "there is a race (in the market) to get a deal done before SpaceX," adding that "there is concern that SpaceX's IPO will be large and high-profile, absorbing most of investors' attention and capital."

The speed of Cerebras's listing process also appears to be influenced by the fact that this is its second IPO application.

Cerebras pursued a listing in September 2024, but voluntarily withdrew its IPO in October last year after an equity investment by UAE company G42 became an issue and it underwent an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).