The chipmaker, which designs and manufactures AI inference chips, has long billed itself as an Nvidia challenger, and its first day stock pop certainly reflected Nvidia-mania: Cerebras shares rocketed 70% by market close. 

The factors that ruffled prospective investors in 2024 seem, for now, far in the rearview mirror. At the time, there were concerns around customer concentration, Cerebras’s ties to UAE-connected G42, and CEO Andrew Feldman’s own distant past. (Feldman pled guilty to accounting fraud in the 2000s at a previous company.) Now, though, the company’s multi-billion partnership with OpenAI, also a shareholder, seems to be key to the company’s momentum and future prospects. I asked Feldman on Thursday about the key differences in the company between today and 2024.

“We’re a stronger company,” he told Fortune. “I think we have bigger customers. We have more deployments. Our technology’s more mature. I think we have a better roadmap… We told the world we’d win a big customer like G42 and we’d learn from it. They were a billion-dollar customer and everyone said ‘you have only one.’ But we were ready, and in a position to move quickly.”

Karl Alomar, managing partner at M13, says the company’s biggest challenge from here is “execution at scale.”

“Cerebras has proven demand from hyperscalers, but they need to prove they can manufacture at volume, deliver on time, and support multiple customers at the same operational level Nvidia does,” he said via email, adding that recent softness in the secondary market for Cerebras is illustrative of this risk. “Investors want to see concrete customer wins and production schedules, not just OpenAI.”

Still, Eric Vishria, general partner at early backer Benchmark, says there’s absolutely room for many winners in chips. 

“The demand for compute and inference is not slowing down,” said Vishria via email. “So… maintaining hardware execution and speed are their moat… When I look forward, I ask myself: how big is the market for slow anything? Slow internet, slow search, slow streaming—ultimately everything gets really fast, and fast tends to win.” 

Feldman is candid: No one knows how big this market really is, he says. One back-of-the-envelope calculation:

“There are 47 million software engineers in the world,” said Feldman. “If each one uses $100,000 of tokens a year, that’s nearly $5 trillion from just a single use case. Do that bottoms-up and you go, ‘Holy crap.’”

I suspect that from here, there are only two directions for Cerebras: In a year, it will have ripped, becoming one of the few high-profile venture-backed IPOs to truly rise to the occasion for retail investors. Or it will go in the direction of Figma, down more than 80% since its hype-y first day. Something measured is off the table.  

Today’s numbers, dazzling as they are, aren’t the real test. But, my gosh, what a first day.

See you Monday,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com

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Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

Correction, May 15, 2026: The email version of this newsletter incorrectly stated that M13 is a Cerebras investor.

VENTURE CAPITAL

- Nectar Social, a San Francisco-based AI-powered marketing platform that automates brand campaigns, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round and was joined by True Ventures, Google Ventures, and Kinship Ventures.

- Iceotope Group, a Sheffield, U.K. and Morrisville, N.C.-based developer of liquid cooling systems for AI data centers, raised $26 million in Series B funding. Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures led the round and were joined by Edinv, ABC Impact, Northern Gritstone, and British Business Bank.

- GovWell, a New York City-based AI operating system designed for permitting and licensing processes in local government, raised $25 million in Series A funding, Insight Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Work-Bench, Bienville Capital, and others.

- Stitch, a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based developer of infrastructure and workflow software for banks and financial institutions, raised $25 million in Series A funding. a16z led the round and was joined by existing investors Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.

- Novella, a New York City-based AI-powered wholesale insurance broker, raised $21 million in funding. Brewer Lane Ventures led the round and was joined by Box Group, Crystal Venture Partners, and others.

- Optura, a Nashville, Tenn.-based health care technology company designed to help providers optimize return on AI investments, raised $17.5 million in Series A funding. Salesforce Ventures led the round and was joined by Echo Health Ventures and existing investors Susa Ventures, Matrix Partners, and HC9 Ventures.

- Turnkey, a New York City-based platform designed to help developers integrate crypto wallet infrastructure into their applications, raised $12.5 million in funding from Archetype, Circle Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and others.

- Urologic Health, an Or Yehuda, Israel-based developer of non-invasive diagnostic technology for bladder function assessment, raised $11 million in seed funding from Edge Medical Ventures, SHD Partners, Longevity Venture Partners, and others.

- Flick, a San Francisco-based AI filmmaking tool, raised $6 million in seed funding from True Ventures, Google Ventures, Y Combinator, Lightspeed, and others.

- Greenboard, a New York City-based developer of compliance and operations software for financial services, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Base 10 Partners led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Wayfinder Ventures, and others.

- Ranger, a San Francisco-based agentic operating system designed for the industrial bidding process, raised $8.4 million in seed funding. Bonfire Ventures led the round and was joined by 25madison, Inovia Capital, and Panache Ventures.

- Graphon AI, a San Francisco-based developer of an intelligence layer designed to process and structure data before it reaches AI modelsI, raised $8.3 million in seed funding. Arvind Gupta of Novera Ventures led the round and was joined by Perplexity Fund, Samsung Next, GS Futures, Hitachi Ventures, Gaia Ventures, B37 Ventures, and Aurum Partners.

- Chromie Health, a New York City-based AI-powered scheduling and management platform for hospital operations, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. AIX Ventures led the round.

PRIVATE EQUITY

- Ambienta acquired a majority stake in Disano, a Milan, Italy-based manufacturer of lighting fixtures. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Fortify Restoration, a portfolio company of Osceola Capital, acquired Beaches Construction, a Panama City Beach, Fla.-based restoration services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

- Brookfield agreed to acquire World Freight Company, a Paris, France-based air-cargo capacity company, from PAI Partners and EQT.

IPOS

- Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AI infrastructure company, raised $5.6 billion in an offering of 30 million shares priced at $185 on the Nasdaq. 

- Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, a New York City-based real estate investment trust, raised $1.75 billion in an offering of 87.5 million shares priced at $20 on the New York Stock Exchange.