Arm Backed Ambiq Micro Soars Following IPO

Ambiq Micro shares soared yesterday following in impressive IPO which saw the AI chip company raise $96 million. Ambiq's focus on wearable and smart devices follows the vision of Founder and CTO Scott Hanson to put "intelligence everywhere." He discussed this and more with Tim Stenovec and Carol Massar on "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily"

Ambiq Micro Inc. shares rose 61% in their first trading day, after the maker of ultra-low power semiconductors for AI applications raised $96 million in an upsized initial public offering.

Shares of the Austin-based company closed at $38.53 each on Wednesday in New York, above the IPO price of $24 apiece. The stock was halted twice for volatility. Ambiq’s offering of 4 million shares was marketed in a range of $22 to $25 each.

The trading gives Ambiq a market value of $680 million, based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings. Including stock options, warrants and restricted stock units, Ambiq has a diluted value closer to $741 million.

Ambiq’s platform promises to deliver as much as five times lower energy consumption versus traditional chips, the filings show. The Arm Holdings Plc-backed company’s chip technology is helping to move AI computing power from the data center to wearable products such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, whose power limitations have previously hampered their AI potential.

“In phase one of the company we saw customers extend the battery life of devices, but the real value proposition that matters is when we enable the same battery life and add AI functions that were not viable before,” said Scott Hanson, Ambiq’s chief technology officer.

Other potential applications of Ambiq’s technology could include embedding large language models on devices such as augmented- and virtual-reality glasses, Hanson said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Largest Customer

Ambiq has a relatively concentrated customer base. Its largest customer in the first quarter of this year, which it didn’t identify, accounted for 38% of revenue in the period, according to the filings. End customers accounting for 10% or more of net sales during the quarter included Garmin Ltd., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and another unidentified customer. In 2024, China’s Huawei Technologies Co. accounted for 41% of net sales, while Garmin had 24% and Google had 21%.

Ambiq’s revenues have shifted away from mainland China, which generated 45.5% of sales in the first half of last year but only 8% to 9.5% based on preliminary sales figures for the first half of this year, according to the filings. The company was focusing outside China due to geopolitical concerns and subsidized competitors creating a price-sensitive environment in that country, the filings show.

The company reported a net loss of $8.3 million on revenue of $15.7 million in the three months ended March 31, compared with a loss of $9.8 million on $15.2 million revenue in the same period in 2024, the filings show.

Chip designer Arm, Kleiner Perkins, Singaporean state-backed investor EDB Investments Pte, VentureTech Alliance and Conductive Ventures are among Ambiq’s investors.

Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group AG led the offering. The company’s shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AMBQ.

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