Tenstorrent Raises $1.5B as Austin Counter-Drone Startup Stellios Exits Stealth

An AI chipmaker with a major Austin footprint doubles down on growth, while Oracle, HydroGraph and Aviat roll out new deals, facilities and products.

AI chip developer Tenstorrent, which counts Austin among its six operating hubs, raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation, leading a Silicon Hills news cycle that also brought an Austin-based directed-energy startup out of stealth, a new Austin headquarters for graphene maker HydroGraph and a satellite-backup product from Aviat Networks.

Tenstorrent closes $1.5 billion Series E at $6.2 billion valuation

AI chip developer Tenstorrent said it raised a $1.5 billion Series E round co-led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, valuing the company at $6.2 billion after the investment, according to a company announcement posted Oct. 19. Other backers include Fidelity Management & Research, T. Rowe Price, ARK Invest, Morgan Stanley, Eclipse, SanDisk, Tether Investments and XTX Markets.

Led by CEO Jim Keller, Tenstorrent designs AI processors, sells its Galaxy servers and licenses AI and CPU designs to other chipmakers. The company said it will use the money to deploy Galaxy servers at scale, serve open-weight large language and video-generation models, and push its licensable chip IP further. “We built one architecture and sell it at every size,” Keller said.

Tenstorrent lists Austin among its six operating hubs, alongside Santa Clara, Toronto, Belgrade, Tokyo and Bangalore, and Built In identifies Austin and Silicon Valley as its U.S. office locations. A war chest of this size gives the company room to keep hiring chip architects and engineers in a market where Austin already competes for semiconductor talent with Samsung, AMD, Apple and Arm.

Stellios Technologies emerges with $5 million for counter-drone microwave weapons

Stellios Technologies, a directed-energy hardware startup described as Austin-based by Defense Daily and Unmanned Airspace, emerged from stealth Oct. 20 with an oversubscribed $5 million pre-seed round. Investors include Sofreh Capital, Wave Function Ventures, Cubit Capital, Mana Ventures, Atoms & Bits, Output Capital, and angel investor Erik Bruckner; no lead investor was named.

Founded this year by Richard Starson, the company builds high-power microwave systems along with the vacuum-electronic devices and high-voltage power gear that drive them. Its first product, Stellios Shield, is designed to knock down drones without kinetic interceptors. Stellios is also developing an AI-driven engineering and digital-twin platform called Stellios Genesis and is doing early research on compact fusion.

The startup reported about $2 million in signed customer orders before it raised outside money. It plans to use the funding to deliver its first contracted systems, set up U.S. research and pilot manufacturing, and grow its engineering team. The debut comes less than a week after Austin Sensing Company raised $15 million for counter-drone sensing, signaling that the region’s defense-tech cluster is increasingly focused on drone defense.

HydroGraph opens Austin headquarters, nears first graphene sales

Graphene producer HydroGraph Clean Power said Oct. 21 it received a certificate of occupancy for its new Austin headquarters, which houses three Hyperion reactors with capacity to produce up to 30 tons of graphene a year, according to a GlobeNewswire release. A second plant in Bellville, Texas, is in permitting and is expected to open in the first half of 2027 with roughly 60 tons of annual capacity.

The company said several customer evaluations have moved into commercial negotiations, with first agreements expected within months, and that a new defense unit is pursuing U.S. research partnerships. More than 30 customers have sampled its new water-based graphene paste. Securityholders will vote Oct. 29 on moving the company’s legal home to Delaware, after an August financing round that raised 70.4 million Canadian dollars.

Aviat Networks adds satellite backup to wireless networks

Aviat Networks (NASDAQ: AVNW) introduced Connectivity Assurance Software on Oct. 20, which pairs low Earth orbit satellite links with terrestrial microwave and cellular connections and automatically shifts traffic to satellite when ground links fail, according to a press release. The Austin-based company is targeting public safety agencies, utilities, transportation and energy operators, and rural broadband providers.

The software runs on Aviat’s ProVision Plus management platform and supports remote troubleshooting, which can cut costly truck rolls to remote sites. “The real value is not the satellite link alone,” CEO Pete Smith said.

Also in Silicon Hills

  • Tesla reports third-quarter results after markets close Wednesday. The Austin-based automaker delivered 486,532 vehicles in the quarter, beating analyst consensus of 461,974, but deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage, short of the 15.9 GWh expected. (Not a Tesla App; OANDA)
  • Bazaarvoice formed a strategic partnership with AI search analytics firm Profound to help brands track and improve how their products show up in AI shopping answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google. (GlobeNewswire)
  • Xojo released Xojo 2026 Release 3, adding an Agentic Mode that lets AI coding agents edit projects in its cross-platform development tool. (PR Newswire)
  • Rosie, a Seattle home-help startup, raised $7 million and plans to launch in Austin in early 2027; it is hiring an in-person Austin city general manager. (GeekWire)
  • Data center growth has become a central issue in the race for Texas Senate District 5, which includes fast-growing Williamson County; early voting runs through Oct. 30. (KUT)

Only in Austin

Today’s chip-and-hardware news has a famously humble local ancestor. In 1984, University of Texas freshman Michael Dell assembled and sold upgraded PCs out of Room 2713 at Dobie, the 27-story private dorm near campus then known as Dobie Mall. He launched PC’s Limited on May 3, 1984, with about $1,000 from his family, then left school after his freshman year to run it full time. The company’s 1985 Turbo PC sold for $795; the business became Dell Computer Corp. in 1987, and it eventually settled in Round Rock. (Wikipedia: Dell)

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