Samsung co-leads EUCLYD's EUR 200m Series A against a 2028 hardware date
Samsung has co-led a EUR 200m round for Euclyd, an Eindhoven chip company founded in 2024, and the chief executive says the Korean group's memory manufacturing and supply-chain reach matter as much as its cash.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Samsung co-led Euclyd's 200-million-euro Series A alongside Somerset Capital Partners, Innovation Industries and the EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund, a round CNBC reported at $231 million.
- The company, founded in 2024 by Bernardo Kastrup and Atul Sinha in Eindhoven, is designing an inference chip system whose processor and memory architecture differs from a GPU's.
- Kastrup told CNBC that Euclyd aims to begin rolling out physical chip systems in 2028 and to be serving thousands of enterprise customers by 2030.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint With first hardware due in 2028, the enterprise revenue line cannot be tested for years, so the follow-on round will be priced on engineering milestones and whatever licensing has been signed.
- Who's exposed exposure The Scaleup Europe Fund is carrying a position worth about 4% of its 5-billion-euro target in a company with no shipped product, while the same sum is six hundredths of a percent of EQT's book.
- What it sets up precedent Selling chip IP into a market where Google, AWS, Meta and OpenAI already run in-house silicon programmes means the licensing line competes with the customers' own design teams.
- Who has to decide decision An enterprise that wants self-hosted inference has nothing from Euclyd to evaluate before 2028, so for now this round is an allocator's decision.
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Bernardo Kastrup was specific about what Samsung adds beyond money. "Samsung can help us in more ways than money," he told CNBC [7], and then gave his reasons: "They are one of the biggest memory manufacturers in the world. They do a lot of engineering, they know a lot about systems, they know the supply chain, they have a huge network" [9]. Euclyd's own description of its platform is programmable ASIC compute, processor-memory co-design and system-level optimisation [13].
Launched in 2024, aiming to begin rolling out physical systems in 2028 [3][5], the company has four years between founding and first hardware, and EUR 200m [1] spread across that gap averages about EUR 50m a year [25]. Euclyd says the financing will expand its engineering organisation, accelerate the silicon and systems roadmap, strengthen ecosystem partnerships and prepare it for deployment across enterprise, sovereign and hyperscale markets [15]. The stated target of thousands of enterprise customers sits two years past that first rollout [26].
EQT manages EUR 341bn in total assets [20], and its Scaleup Europe Fund is targeting EUR 5bn of pooled public and private capital for deeptech, AI and life sciences [19]. The whole Euclyd round is about 4% of that fund's target and roughly six hundredths of one percent of EQT's assets under management [23][24]. The co-leads did not disclose how the EUR 200m divides between them.
Two revenue lines are planned: racks and hardware sold to enterprises that want secure self-hosted inference, and intellectual property sold to companies building their own chips [11]. The second line can produce cash before any rack ships, and its buyers are the firms that have already decided to design in-house. OpenAI said in August that its first chip, the Jalapeño, had "industry-leading speed and efficiency" [17], and Google, AWS and Meta are each developing their own AI silicon [18].
The product claims in the announcement are the company's: craftwerk billed as the world's first agentic AI silicon, and craftwerk station CWS as the world's lowest-power exascale AI factory [12]. CNBC reported that Euclyd's systems have yet to be proven at scale in commercial deployments [10], and the announcement carries no benchmark figure.
What EUR 200m buys here, in my view, is a team and a supply relationship. Peter Wennink, formerly president and chief executive of ASML, chairs the board [8], and Samsung's Dede Goldschmidt said Euclyd "combines an accomplished team with a differentiated vision addressing constraints in AI datacenters" [14].
If a licensee signs in 2027, the 2028 date stops governing the cash and this becomes an IP business with a hardware option attached. If memory allocation is the scarce input in 2028, the thing worth owning here is the Samsung relationship, and the architecture is what secured it.
What would falsify the first reading is a paid enterprise deployment or a named licensee before 2028. Absent either, the next price for this equity gets set on engineering milestones, with the first rollout still dated 2028 [5].
What to watch
- A named licensee or a paid enterprise deployment before 2028 would move Euclyd's revenue off the hardware date.
- Whether Samsung's involvement extends from equity to a disclosed memory supply or manufacturing agreement.
- The split of the 200 million euros between the four co-leads, and the price at which the next round is struck.
Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption5
- Hype gap+55
- Incentives72
- Confidence62
Perspective Coverage
6 publishers- Builder
- Builder 32%
- Operator
- Operator 17%
- Investor
- Investor 51%
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Euclyd's Series A was a 200-million-euro round, which CNBC reported as $231 million.
- [2]
Euclyd CEO Bernardo Kastrup told CNBC that the 200-million-euro Series A drew backing from Somerset Capital Partners, the Scaleup Europe Fund managed by EQT and Innovation Industries, which all co-led the round alongside Samsung.
- [3]
Euclyd was founded in 2024.
- [4]
Euclyd was founded by Bernardo Kastrup and Atul Sinha at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, and is headquartered in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
- [5]
Euclyd aims to begin rolling out its physical chip systems in 2028, with thousands of enterprise customers being served by 2030, Kastrup told CNBC.
- [6]
Euclyd is designing an AI chip system for inference, including the processor and memory architecture, with a different architecture to GPUs.
- [7]
"Samsung can help us in more ways than money," said Kastrup.
- [8]
Peter Wennink, Chairman of the Board of EUCLYD, is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of ASML.
- [9]
"They are one of the biggest memory manufacturers in the world. They do a lot of engineering, they know a lot about systems, they know the supply chain, they have a huge network," said Kastrup.
- [10]
Euclyd's systems have yet to be proven at scale in commercial deployments.
- [11]
Euclyd is targeting two revenue streams: selling hardware and physical rack systems to enterprise customers who want secure self-hosted AI inference, and selling its intellectual property to companies that want to develop their own chips based on pre-existing tech.
- [12]
At the centre of Euclyd's roadmap are craftwerk, which the company calls the world's first agentic AI silicon, and craftwerk station CWS, which it calls the world's lowest-power exascale AI factory.
- [13]
Euclyd says its platform combines programmable ASIC compute, processor-memory co-design and system-level optimization to overcome the memory and efficiency walls limiting AI performance and scalability.
- [14]
"EUCLYD combines an accomplished team with a differentiated vision addressing constraints in AI datacenters," said Dede Goldschmidt, Senior Vice President of Samsung Electronics and Head of the Samsung Semiconductor Innovation Center.
- [15]
Euclyd says the financing will expand its engineering organization, accelerate its silicon and systems roadmap, strengthen ecosystem partnerships, and prepare the company for commercial deployment across enterprise, sovereign, and hyperscale AI markets.
- [16]
Nvidia became the world's most valuable company after its GPUs were repurposed for training and inference, and has developed a near monopoly over the market for the highest-end chips.
- [17]
OpenAI announced in August that its first AI chip, the Jalapeño, had "industry-leading speed and efficiency."
- [18]
Google, AWS and Meta are all also developing their own AI chips.
- [19]
The Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, is targeting 5 billion euros, brings together public and private capital, and invests across Deeptech, AI and Life Sciences.
- [20]
EQT has 341 billion euros in total assets under management.
- [21]
Innovation Industries is a European deep tech venture capital firm with 1 billion euros in capital.
- [22]
Somerset Capital Partners was founded in 2005 by Joes Daemen and invests across sectors including technology, real estate, strategic land, data centres, consumer and healthcare.
- [23]
The 200-million-euro round is about 4% of the 5 billion euros the Scaleup Europe Fund is targeting.
- [24]
The 200-million-euro round is about 0.06% of the 341 billion euros EQT has in total assets under management.
- [25]
Four years separate Euclyd's 2024 founding from its planned 2028 hardware rollout, and 200 million euros across that span averages about 50 million euros a year.
- [26]
Two years separate the planned 2028 start of hardware rollout from the 2030 target of thousands of enterprise customers.
Sources
5 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cnbc.comSamsung backs Nvidia AI chip rival in $230 million funding round as GPU alternatives boom
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- cryptobriefing.comEuclyd secures over €200M in Series A co-led by Samsung and Somerset Capital
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- eu-startups.comDutch AI chip startup EUCLYD lands €200+ million Series A, taps ex-ASML chief Peter Wennink as Chairman | EU-Startups
1 article · September 15, 2026
- livemint.comSamsung invests in Nvidia rival: Dutch AI chip startup gets $230 million funding as quest for alternatives grow | Company Business News
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- prnewswire.comEUCLYD Raises Over €200 Million to Break the AI Efficiency Wall
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- techfundingnews.comSamsung backs Euclyd’s €200M+ round to challenge Nvidia in AI chips
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Topics and entities
Topics
- AI inference chips
- European deep tech
- Semiconductor venture funding
Entities
- Nvidia
- Dede Goldschmidt
- Scaleup Europe Fund
- Samsung Electronics
- Innovation Industries
- Bernardo Kastrup
- Somerset Capital Partners
- ASML
- EQT