Nicolas Sauvage's TDK Ventures backs inference-focused AI chip startup Groq, valued at $6.9 billion in latest round

TDK Ventures, founded by Sauvage in 2019, is managing $500 million across four funds. The fund's highest-profile investment is Groq, an AI chip startup valued at $6.9 billion during its most recent funding round last fall. Sauvage invested in Groq in 2020, before the generative AI boom.

Groq, founded by Jonathan Ross (an engineer who built Google's Tensor Processing Units), focuses on inference — the computational processing that happens when an AI model responds to a query. Ross designed the chip by building the compiler first and stripping the architecture down until, as Sauvage describes it, 'you can't remove one part and have it still work.'

Sauvage's thesis is that demand for inference compounds with every new application and model, unlike consumer hardware which has a natural ceiling. The article notes that demand for inference has exploded this year due to AI agents that plan and act across dozens of calls, where a single query used to suffice.

TDK Ventures' portfolio includes solid-state grid transformers, sodium-ion batteries for data centers, and alternative battery chemistries that sidestep lithium and cobalt supply constraints.