Kleiner Perkins-backed Ambiq pops on IPO debut

Ambiq Micro, a 15-year-old manufacturer of energy-efficient chips for wearable and medical devices, closed its first day of trading on Wednesday at $38.53 a share, a 61% increase from the $24 IPO price the company set the previous day.

The success of the IPO signals strong investor demand in the public market for new small-cap companies benefiting from AI innovation.

Ambiq closed its first day as a public company with a valuation of $656 million (excluding employee options). This represents a significant increase from its last private funding valuation of $450 million in 2023, according to PitchBook.

Ambiq has pitched itself as well-positioned to capitalize on the growth driven by AI. “Because we’re so low energy, we can put more intelligence and more AI on board” of edge processors, the company’s CTO Scott Hanson told TechCrunch.

For the three months that ended March 31, Ambiq posted a net loss of $8.3 million against revenues of $15.7 million, the company’s S1 filing shows. The Q1 results mark a slight improvement from the first quarter of 2024, when the company reported a $9.8 million loss on $15.2 million in revenue.

Kleiner Perkins and EDB Investments, a Singaporean state-backed entity, are the largest outside backers of Ambiq, according to the filing.

Wen Hsieh, who was a general partner at Kleiner Perkins until 2023, first backed Ambiq when the company raised its Series C in 2014. Hsieh also invested in Ambiq after he launched his own venture firm, Matter Venture Partners, two years ago.