The archive · Hardware & Devices · Strategic decision · 2018–2025
Untether AI's energy-efficient chip bet: AMD acquihire, then 2025 bankruptcy
Toronto AI chipmaker with $152M raised sold its team to AMD in June 2025, then filed for bankruptcy with $128M in liabilities
Untether AI
What the business is
Untether AI designed AI inference accelerators using an in-memory compute architecture that promised much lower power and higher speed than Nvidia GPUs, selling chips such as the speedAI240 for edge and data-center workloads.
Starting capital：$152M USD (~$208M CAD) raised over its lifetime, including a $125M round led by Intel Capital in July 2021
How it started
Founded in Toronto in 2018 by Martin Snelgrove, Darrick Wiebe and Raymond Chik, Untether AI built AI inference chips around an in-memory computing architecture that combined memory and compute in one package to cut power and latency. The pitch won big backers early: a $125M USD round led by Intel Capital in July 2021, with Radical Ventures, CPP Investments and General Motors Ventures among the investors.
What happened
After the 2021 round the company never closed another major financing, and as Nvidia's dominance of AI hardware grew, fundraising attempts collapsed — worsened by US tariff uncertainty in 2025, per The Globe and Mail. Untether kept shipping products, launching the speedAI240 Slim inference accelerator in October 2024 with a claimed 3x energy-efficiency gain, but it ran out of runway. In early 2024 it hired Intel veteran Chris Walker as CEO to lead the fundraising push; he left a month before the AMD deal.
How it ended up
In June 2025 Untether entered an acquihire with AMD, which took the engineering team without buying the company's assets or IP; Untether VP Bob Beachler said the deal 'marks the end of Untether AI's journey' and that speedAI and imAIgine would no longer be sold or supported. On October 14, 2025 the remaining company filed for bankruptcy with about $25M in assets against $128M in liabilities, appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers as trustee.
Background
Untether AI was founded in Toronto in 2018 by Martin Snelgrove, Darrick Wiebe and Raymond Chik to build AI inference chips using an in-memory computing architecture — memory and compute in the same package — that promised to run AI workloads faster and cooler than conventional chips. The thesis was that energy-efficient 'speedAI' processors could carve out a real market from the edge to the data center, and the pitch attracted $152M USD, including a $125M round led by Intel Capital in July 2021.
After 2021, momentum stalled. Untether never closed another major round, and as Nvidia's dominance of AI hardware consolidated, fundraising collapsed — a problem The Globe and Mail attributed to Nvidia's market power and US tariff uncertainty in 2025. The company kept engineering, launching the speedAI240 Slim accelerator in October 2024 with a claimed 3x energy-efficiency gain, but the runway ran out. In early 2024 Untether hired Intel veteran Chris Walker as CEO to lead fundraising; he left a month before the AMD deal.
In June 2025 AMD acquired the engineering team in an acquihire without buying Untether's assets or IP; VP Bob Beachler said the deal 'marks the end of Untether AI's journey', and speedAI processors and the imAIgine SDK were discontinued. On October 14, 2025 the shell company filed for bankruptcy with roughly $25M in assets against $128M in liabilities and appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as trustee. Founders Snelgrove and Chik have since started a new Toronto chip firm, Hepzibah AI.
What has to be true
- The core bet on beating Nvidia with a more efficient chip needed years of sustained capital, but after the 2021 round no major investor came in.
- Inference demand consolidated on Nvidia's ecosystem, so even a technically admired architecture struggled to convert into revenue.
- Macro headwinds — US tariff uncertainty and AI-chip market concentration — cratered fundraising just as the runway was running out.
- The company kept building products (speedAI240) while the sales and funding engine stalled, so engineering outran commercial traction.
- An acquihire was the only exit: AMD took the team for its AI compiler and chip-design work, leaving the company to liquidate with a $103.6M deficiency.
What can be applied
A clever chip architecture is not a moat against Nvidia: Untether's in-memory chips impressed analysts, but with no funding after 2021 and demand consolidating on GPUs, the runway ran out.
Aftermath
As of October 2025 Untether AI was in bankruptcy with PricewaterhouseCoopers as trustee, roughly $25M in cash assets against $128M of liabilities, and its investors — Middlefield Ventures, Radical Ventures, GM Ventures, CPP Investments and others — listed among the largest unsecured creditors. The speedAI products and imAIgine SDK were discontinued after the June AMD acquihire, and founders Martin Snelgrove and Raymond Chik launched a new Toronto venture, Hepzibah AI, to continue energy-efficient compute work.
Sources
- Untether AI files for bankruptcy following AMD acquihire
- AMD bags team behind AI chipmaker Untether AI, its third acquisition in under two weeks
- Untether AI Shuts Down, Team Acquired by AMD
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