Bulletins

Arm server chip startup Ampere is headed for an IPO

Server processor designer Ampere Computing said Monday it had filed a confidential prospectus with the SEC, signaling its intent to IPO in the future.

Data center

Oracle has invested $426 million in Ampere over the years.

Photo: Microsoft

Oracle-backed server processor startup Ampere Computing said Monday that it plans to go public, filing initial confidential paperwork with the SEC.

A public listing would give Ampere an infusion of cash and potential access to more investment further down the line via public markets after Oracle has quietly invested $426 million in Ampere, which is run by former Intel president Renée James. The funding will likely aid Ampere’s efforts to carve out a space in the data center for rivals to Intel and AMD, which currently dominate the server market.

The confidential treatment allows Ampere to proceed with the listing process without making significant disclosures around its operations and financial performance in recent years. Some companies file prospectuses and never go public, or end up getting acquired along the way.

Oracle’s latest quarterly earnings report implied that it had taken a 20% to 50% stake in Ampere, based on accounting rules. James sits on Oracle’s board but it stopped treating her as an independent member after Oracle first took a stake in the Silicon Valley company.

Bloomberg News reported in October that Oracle was in talks with SoftBank for a stake that would have valued Ampere at about $8 billion, but that the company didn’t need to raise money at the time.

Ampere designs server chips based on Arm architecture that aim to challenge chips made by Intel and AMD that run on x86-based designs. Microsoft and Oracle are two of Ampere’s larger customers, the latter of which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the startup.

SoftBank owns Arm, and has said it plans to take it public.
Max A. Cherney

Max A. Cherney is a senior reporter at Protocol covering the semiconductor industry. He has worked for Barron's magazine as a Technology Reporter, and its sister site MarketWatch. He is based in San Francisco.

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