Benzinga | Jun 11, 2021 08:43AM EDT

Intel Proposes To Acquire Chip Maker SiFive For Over $2B: Bloomberg

* Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) offered to acquire semiconductor designer start-up SiFive Inc for over $2 billion, Bloomberg reports.

* SiFive received acquisition offers from multiple parties apart from Intel, including offers for preferable investment routes.

* SiFive was last valued at $500 million during a 2020 fundraising event. It last raised $61 million in a 2020 funding round.

* SiFive designs chips under the RISC-V architecture to make it cheaper and accessible to customers.

* SiFive attracted interest since NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) agreed to acquire SoftBank Group Corp's (OTC:SFTBY) (OTC:SFTBF) Arm Ltd for $40 billion. Arm licenses chip and process designs akin to SiFive.

* SiFive CEO Patrick Little joined the company in 2020 after heading Qualcomm Inc's (NASDAQ:QCOM) auto business.

* SK Hynix Inc (OTC:HXSCL), Spark Capital, and Prosperity7 Ventures, the venture arm of Saudi Arabia's state-owned energy producer Aramco are backers of SiFive. Venture arms of chipmaker Qualcomm and hardware maker Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) also back SiFive.

* Price action: INTC shares traded higher by 0.19% at $57.49 in the premarket session on the last check Friday.