The Cerebras Systems IPO generated billions for its founders and investors, with major shareholder Benchmark owning 9.5% of the AI chipmaker. Benchmark's general partner Eric Vishria, who has been on the Cerebras board since co-leading its $25 million Series A round in 2016, admitted he almost skipped the initial meeting with the startup.
Initial Skepticism
Vishria described the first meeting as a hesitant encounter. "It was five founders and a deck, and it was our first hardware investment in 10 years," he said. "I had been a venture capitalist for, like, 18 months." Before joining Benchmark, Vishria co-founded and sold the social browser startup RockMelt to Yahoo for a reported $60 million to $70 million in 2013.
Benchmark, known for its selectivity, rarely backs hardware companies. Vishria questioned his decision to attend the meeting, messaging his assistant, "Why did you let me take this meeting?" His doubts faded by the third slide of CEO Andrew Feldman's presentation, which argued against GPUs for deep learning.
The Hard Road
Cerebras faced years of challenges, including inventing new cooling methods and machinery for their chip. Funding was tough, especially during the 2022 VC bear market. Despite this, the team persisted, raising half a billion dollars from investors.
The breakthrough came 18 months ago when Cerebras' chips, now manufactured by TSMC, proved highly effective for AI model inference. This coincided with an increased demand for AI compute power, leading to significant revenue growth.
Going Public
Cerebras attempted to go public in 2024 but faced delays due to U.S. government scrutiny over an investment by Abu Dhabi-based cloud provider G42. The delay allowed them to secure contracts with OpenAI and AWS, boosting revenue and profitability.
Benchmark's shares, purchased for about $270 million, are now worth multiple billions. The firm owned 17,602,983 shares, valued at $3.3 billion at the IPO's opening price of $185, and over $5.3 billion if the price of over $300 holds.
Vishria's Reflections
Vishria credits the Cerebras team for their "persistence, ingenuity, but also adaptiveness." The IPO represents a significant success for Benchmark, especially given its initial hesitance to venture into hardware. Vishria's assistant, who scheduled the first meeting, is expected to benefit from the success, with Vishria noting, "I think she'll do well, very well."
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/14/cerebras-ipo-makes-billions-for-benchmark-but-vc-eric-vishria-almost-didnt-take-the-meeting/
