Quadric extends Series C to $46M with second close led by world bank's IFC. Jul 13, 2026, 21:00 ET New investment links Quadric with the governments and industries building their own AI, and a market hyperscale datacenters can't serve * Prior lead investors doubled down. Pear VC, Uncork Capital, and BEENEXT that led Quadric's seed and its Series C first close increased their stakes as its design-win footprint expands. * IFC is backing Quadric in its first AI chip investment as it will help reach markets that hyperscaler-dependent solutions cannot serve. * $90 million raised. Funded to support today's customers and win the incoming wave in humanoid robotics, wearables, and networking. BURLINGAME, Calif., July 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Quadric announced the second close of its Series C as it accelerates deployment of its programmable AI chip platform. Designed to run any AI model directly on the device, Quadric's technology supports a growing shift toward secure, locally controlled AI infrastructure. Led by the International Finance Corporation, the round brings Quadric's Series C to $46 million, with total capital raised reaching $90 million. The capital will expand Quadric's support and go-to-market teams for existing customers in automotive, AI PCs, and enterprise, and incoming customers in humanoid robotics, wearables, and networking. Existing investors increased their investment in this close: Pear VC, which led Quadric's seed round; Uncork Capital; and BEENEXT, which led the round's first close. Offline Ventures, co-founded by Facebook Platform creator Dave Morin and former Apple executive James Higa, joined as a new investor. The first close of Series C, announced in January 2026, followed a year in which Quadric product revenues more than tripled and the company reached profitability. IFC has committed more than $3 billion to technology ventures in emerging markets. "Quadric addresses one of the most important structural gaps in the AI ecosystem today," said Mohamed Eissa, Chief Investment Officer at IFC. "Powerful AI cannot remain the exclusive domain of hyperscalers if emerging markets are going to close the digital divide. Quadric's programmable architecture fundamentally changes the economics: SMEs in emerging markets can now deploy AI on devices they own, without the per-token cloud bills that price them out. That productivity gain directly levels the playing field between small businesses in emerging and developed markets. And critically, building this class of efficient, programmable chips creates exactly the kind of high-value semiconductor and AI engineering talent that emerging markets like India need to compete globally." "A chip feature set is locked years before it ships, and AI models change every few months, so an operator-centric, fixed-function NPU arrives behind the models and only falls further back," said Veerbhan Kheterpal, CEO and co-founder of Quadric. "Quadric is a living platform: because the stack is software, the same chip runs new models and gets faster long after it ships. That's the difference between silicon that depreciates and silicon that compounds. Ask our customers." "Every NPU gets judged the day a new model drops," said Daniel Firu, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Quadric. "We port new models to Chimera cores and our customers take them as a software update, no silicon change. That porting machine is the product: the same core runs models published years after the silicon was designed." "We're excited to keep backing Quadric as it pursues a massive opportunity. AI is moving outside the datacenter, and chip companies need silicon that can run tomorrow's models, not just today's. Quadric is solving that, and the design wins are proving it out. We led Quadric's seed round and doubled down in this round because, from day one, we've seen firsthand how innovative this team is, and how strong they are in both the technology and the execution it takes to win," said Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC, which led Quadric's seed round. Chimera Processors Surpass Conventional NPUs The Chimera GPNPU scales from 1 to over 3200 TOPS in multi-chiplet configurations and supports an endless array of AI models, both convolutional and transformer-based, ranging from traditional computer vision to on-device LLM inference and emerging VLA world models. Chimera processors deliver a single programmable architecture that chip designers deploy once and adapt as AI model requirements evolve. Quadric's software toolchain converts AI models into C++, as well as enabling SoC design teams to write code in Python or C++. About Quadric Quadric Inc. is the leading licensor of fully programmable general-purpose AI inference processor IP that runs both AI inference workloads and classic DSP and control algorithms. Quadric's Chimera GPNPU architecture is optimized for on-device AI/ML inference, including automotive-grade safety enhanced versions. Quadric is headquartered in Burlingame, California. Learn more at www.quadric.ai. SOURCE Quadric, Inc.

Quadric has extended its Series C funding round to $46 million, led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The investment brings the company's total funding to over $90 million. Existing investors Pear VC, Uncork Capital, and BEENEXT increased their stakes in the round. The company develops programmable AI chips designed for on-device applications, targeting sectors including automotive technology, AI personal computers, and enterprise solutions. Quadric plans to use the capital to expand its teams and pursue opportunities in humanoid robotics, wearable devices, and networking technologies. IFC's involvement reflects its focus on emerging markets, where it has invested over $3 billion in tech ventures. The investment aims to make AI technology more accessible to small and medium enterprises in these regions, enabling them to deploy AI solutions without relying heavily on cloud infrastructure.

Hertha Metals has raised $17 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Pear VC, and Clean Energy Ventures. The startup, founded in 2022 by MIT-trained engineer Laureen Meroueh, aims to produce high-purity iron domestically before a January 2027 regulatory deadline banning Chinese rare earth magnets in US defense systems. The company developed Flex-HERS technology, which processes low-grade domestic ores using electric arc furnaces combined with natural gas or hydrogen. Hertha operates a one-tonne-per-day pilot plant in Conroe, Texas, and plans to build a commercial facility with annual capacity exceeding 9,000 tonnes. High-purity iron is essential for neodymium-iron-boron magnets used in electric vehicles and defence applications. China currently supplies 90% of global high-purity iron production.