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AI inference vendor Groq announced on Monday that it has raised $640 million in a Series D funding round, propelling its valuation to $2.8 billion.
BlackRock Private Equity Partners spearheaded the funding round, which also included significant contributions from Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, and other strategic investors.
Groq AI Inference Funding Details and Expansion Plans
According to the August 5 official announcement, Jonathan Ross, CEO and founder of Groq, emphasized the company’s mission to democratize AI development. “We intend to make the resources available so that anyone can create cutting-edge AI products, not just the largest tech companies,” Ross stated in the release.
The new funding will enable Groq to deploy more than 100,000 additional LPUs into GroqCloud, the company’s cloud-based AI development platform.
Proud to share our Series D Funding announcement, led by BlackRock Private Equity Partners.
We will:
– Add capacity – there’s huge developer demand
– Continue hiring exceptional talent
– Accelerate our next-gen LPU
Groq speed is leading the way in instant AI inference. Thanks for…— Groq Inc (@GroqInc) August 5, 2024
GroqCloud is currently utilized by over 360,000 developers who are building AI applications using openly available models such as Meta’s Llama 3.1, OpenAI’s Whisper Large V3, Google’s Gemma, and Mistral’s Mixtral.
The funding will also support Groq’s plans to scale its tokens-as-a-service (TaaS) offering and introduce new models and features to GroqCloud. Groq’s TaaS is a cloud-based service offering where developers can access AI models and processing power on-demand.
In addition to the funding news, Groq is also strengthening its leadership team with two key appointments.
"We intend to hire significantly." Jonathan Ross, Founder and CEO of Groq, on the AI startup's future as it raises $640M in its latest funding round https://t.co/mLVglW5Ify pic.twitter.com/57nBLRi1Ma
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) August 5, 2024
Stuart Pann, former HP and Intel senior executive, joins as chief operating officer (COO). Furthermore, NYU professor and chief AI scientist at Meta Yann LeCun will join as a technical advisor, providing strategic guidance on AI development and innovation.
Groq was co-founded in 2016 by Jonathan Ross, who previously led Google’s Tensor Processing Unit development and specializes in providing dedicated chips and accelerators for AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing.
The company’s flagship LPU inference engine claims to run existing large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT at 10 times the speed of other available inference engines.
Groq’s Market Position and AI Inference Industry Developments
Groq’s latest funding round brings its total raised capital to over $1 billion. The company previously closed a $300 million round in 2021, led by Tiger Global and D1 Capital, which valued the business at $1 billion.
In March 2024, Groq acquired Definitive Intelligence to support its GroqCloud unit.
Groq news!
Happy to announce that @DefinitiveIO has been acquired by @GroqInc so that we can accelerate Groq’s cloud offering. Was lucky to be the seed and A for both of these companies. @sundeep will now be GM of the Groq Cloud and work closely with @JonathanRoss321 to… https://t.co/4hP9HptE5S
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) March 1, 2024
The company has demonstrated its technological prowess, with its LPU setting an inference speed record while running Meta’s Llama 2 70B LLM during a benchmark test in November.
Notably, the funding comes at a time when there is a critical need for next-generation AI inference solutions that can enhance performance and power efficiency while offering the lowest total cost of ownership.
This is particularly important as AI training costs typically reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Other companies in the AI infrastructure space have also seen significant investments recently to generate more revenue.
San Francisco Compute Co. raised $12 million in July to launch a trading platform for computing power. Recognize also secured $102 million in a Series C funding round in February to develop next-generation AI inference solutions.
