Upscale AI, the startup developing AI-focused networking switch silicon, has raised $190 million to fuel its efforts.The Series A-1 round was led by India-based venture capital firm Premji Invest, which has previously backed cybersecurity vendors Sysdig and CrowdStrike. Other backers included Salesforce Ventures, Seligman Ventures, and Temasek. Chip giant Nvidia also now counts among its investors, having joined the extension round, with Upscale already a member of its Partner Network.This latest round, which Upscale plans to use to scale its business and accelerate delivery of its technology, brings the startup’s total funding to $500m and its current valuation to $2 billion.“AI infrastructure is being redefined at cluster scale, and networking is one of the most critical bottlenecks. Upscale AI is building a high-performance, open-standard AI fabric purpose-built for large-scale, synchronized workloads,” said Barun Kar, CEO of Upscale AI. “This investment reinforces our vision and enables us to scale the business as we engage with leading neocloud and hyperscale infrastructure providers to meet growing demand for open, interoperable AI infrastructure.”Upscale is a relative newcomer, having only been founded in 2025 by Kar and Rajiv Khemani, with the brand spun out of Bitcoin mining hardware firm Auradine (now Velaura AI). Its founders hold extensive experience, with Kar an alum of Palo Alto Networks, Juniper Networks, and Motorola. Khemani, meanwhile, has served in C-suite roles at the likes of the Marvell-acquired Innovium and Cavium businesses, alongside management tenures at Intel, NetApp, and Sun Microsystems.The startup is positioning its SkyHammer switch chip line as an AI-only offering, designing it specifically for related workloads. Upscale is also taking an open‑standards approach, with its tech built around emerging standards for AI fabrics, including the Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) consortium and SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) work group for scale‑up networking.In conversation with SDxCentral back in March, Deepti Chandra, Upscale’s VP for product and marketing, detailed the startup has quickly grown to around 200 staff, scaling internally ahead of a potential product launch sometime “close to [the] second half” of the year.Following its latest funding round, Khemani, who serves as executive chairman, said Upscale was “one of the fastest-growing companies in the AI networking space.”“As the team makes rapid progress building out our product portfolio, this investment will help us execute on immediate priorities while advancing Upscale AI’s long-term ambitions,” the exec added.“[Khemani, Kar, and the Upscale AI team] are tackling one of the most critical bottlenecks in AI infrastructure, and they're doing it with a world-class team and a differentiated architectural approach,” said Sandesh Patnam, managing partner at Premji Invest. “The progress we've seen since our initial investment has only deepened our conviction, and we're thrilled to lead this round and double down on the company's vision.”