🪦 Dead
Esperanto Technologies
Startup failed · Talent Poaching · shut down July 1, 2025
- Born
- Died
- Lifespan
- 11y 6m
- Cause of death
- Talent Poaching
- Killed by
- Deep-Pocketed Rivals
- Type
- Startup
A RISC-V AI-inference chipmaker founded in 2014 by Transmeta co-founder Dave Ditzel. Its 7nm ET-SoC-1 packed 1,088 small ET-Minion cores and four larger ET-Maxion cores onto one chip. A $58M Series B in November 2018 brought equity funding to $63M, plus a $1.5M PPP loan in 2020. In July 2025 it closed most operations, keeping only the staff needed to sell its IP, after rivals offered prospective employees up to four times its pay. Ainekko (Nekko.ai) bought the IP that October and is open-sourcing it.