General Compute raises $100M Series A to build cloud on rival inference chips

General Compute secured $100 million in Series A funding led by Blackbird and Abstract Ventures, valuing the company at $800 million post-money. The startup differentiates itself by building a cloud infrastructure using specialized inference chips from Nvidia rivals such as SambaNova, Positron, and Cerebras, rather than relying on Nvidia GPUs. The company utilizes a distributed model, renting data center space and converting former bitcoin-mining sites to run AI models, targeting developers who need bare-metal access. A $400 million chip purchase deal with SambaNova and a $100 million annual recurring revenue contract with a large customer underpin the round.