- Foundry Technologies is in talks to raise money at a valuation of $350 million, a significant increase from its previous valuation of $50 million.
- The increase in valuation highlights the trend of hot companies in the AI sector raising money at rapidly escalating valuations.
- Foundry is one of many AI startups that have experienced a meteoric rise in valuation this year.
- The company plans to rent servers to companies for running AI software.
- The risky pandemic-era fundraising trend of rapidly increasing valuations in short periods of time has returned.
Prins AI, a provider of AI-driven digital persona training products, has raised $22 million in a Series A+ funding round to advance deep learning technologies, expand the team, and enhance marketing and sales efforts.
Salesforce is leading a financing round of $200 million for Hugging Face, a startup that helps businesses use AI, at a valuation of over $4 billion, more than doubling the company's share price and private valuation.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has invested $235 million in the $4.5 billion AI startup Hugging Face, with IBM and Hugging Face already collaborating on AI tools and models, including a partnership with NASA.
AI21 Labs, a text-generating AI startup, has raised $155 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $283 million and valuing the company at $1.4 billion, with plans to expand its workforce and accelerate its R&D efforts.
Actor Ashton Kutcher's venture capital firm, Sound Ventures, is investing in open source AI company Hugging Face, as part of a $235 million series D funding round, bringing Hugging Face's valuation to $4.5 billion.
Nvidia predicts a $600 billion AI market opportunity driven by accelerated computing, with $300 billion in chips and systems, $150 billion in generative AI software, and $150 billion in omniverse enterprise software.
Silicon Valley-based AI chip startup d-Matrix has raised $110 million in funding, including investment from Microsoft, as it aims to compete with Nvidia in the AI chip market by focusing on the "inference" portion of AI processing.
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest predicts that AI software revenue will reach $14 trillion by 2030, and believes that Salesforce and The Trade Desk are attractive investments due to their potential in the AI market and their current valuations.
European AI startup Druid has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round to support its U.S. growth, which currently accounts for the majority of its revenue, as it expands its conversational business applications powered by generative AI.
Artificial intelligence and analytics firm Databricks has raised over $500 million in a Series I funding round, including strategic investor Nvidia, as it prepares for an anticipated IPO and expands its partnership with Nvidia to focus on generative AI. The fundraising round values Databricks at $43 billion and positions it as the eighth-most valuable private company globally. The company is closely monitoring the IPO market but will not be quick to go public, waiting for the macro environment to stabilize.
LastMile AI has raised $10 million in a seed funding round to develop and integrate generative AI models into apps, aiming to democratize generative AI for software engineers and simplify the AI developer journey.
Indie Game Studios' imprint Stronghold Games has sparked controversy by using generative AI in the production of expansions for their popular board game Terraforming Mars, which has already raised over $1.3 million on Kickstarter. The use of AI in the game's development has raised concerns about copyright infringement and artist compensation, but the company sees the technology as a cost-saving and time-saving tool that can revolutionize the industry.
Full-stack generative AI platform, Writer, has secured $100 million in a Series B funding round led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from WndrCo, Balderton Capital, and Insight Partners, as well as Writer customers Accenture and Vanguard; the funding will be used to invest in industry-specific language models and add capabilities to its models, enabling organizations to accelerate growth, increase productivity, and ensure governance.
AI startup Darrow has raised $35 million in funding for its AI-powered data engine that searches for class action litigation potential, with active cases resulting from its insights currently totaling around $10 billion in claims, and plans to use the funding to expand its team, add new legal domains to its tools, and invest in technology assets.