Upscale AI Raises $190M Series A Extension at $2B Valuation

Upscale AI, a pure-play networking infrastructure company focused on AI workloads, raised $190 million in Series A-1 financing, the company said Tuesday. The round brings total funding to $500 million and pushes the Santa Clara-based startup's valuation to $2 billion.

Premji Invest led the investment. New backers included NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, Seligman Ventures, and Temasek. Existing investors Maverick Silicon, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, StepStone Group, and Tiger Global also participated.

The company builds networking gear that uses open standards to connect GPU clusters, a segment that has seen sharp demand growth as hyperscale data centers race to expand capacity. Upscale AI positions its technology as an alternative to proprietary InfiniBand networks, which are common in AI training environments but carry higher switching costs.

NVIDIA's participation is notable because the chipmaker's own Mellanox division competes directly in the same market. The investment gives Upscale AI a strategic backer with deep ties to the largest consumers of AI compute. For more on NVIDIA, see the NVIDIA profile.

The Series A-1 round is one of the larger extensions in the AI infrastructure space this year. The valuation, at $2 billion, reflects growing investor appetite for companies that supply the physical layer of AI data centers. Arista Networks and Cisco are among the established competitors Upscale AI will face.

Upscale AI did not disclose specific use-of-funds plans beyond general product and team expansion. The company first raised a Series A round in 2024 led by Maverick Silicon and Mayfield.