Groq Secures $640M in Series D Funding to Expand AI Inference Technology
Groq is a pioneer in AI inference solutions, focusing on delivering high-speed, high-quality, and energy-efficient AI computing through its innovative hardware and software platforms.
Company Name: Groq
Location: Mountain View, CA
Sector: Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing
Funding Details: Raised $640 million in Series D funding at a valuation of $2.8 billion. The round was led by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, with participation from Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco Investments, Global Brain’s KDDI Open Innovation Fund III, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Purpose of Investment: The company plans to use the funding to scale the capacity of its Tokens-as-a-Service (TaaS) offering, expand GroqCloud services by adding new models and features, and deploy over 100,000 additional LPUs (Logical Processing Units) into GroqCloud.
Leadership: Led by CEO Jonathan Ross, with recent addition of Stuart Pann as Chief Operating Officer and Yann LeCun, VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta, as a technical advisor.
Product and Innovation: Groq specializes in fast AI inference technology, providing scalable cloud and on-prem solutions for AI applications. Its Groq® LPU™ AI inference technology platform offers unmatched AI compute speed, quality, and energy efficiency. The technology supports various AI applications using openly-available models such as Llama 3.1 from Meta, Whisper Large V3 from OpenAI, Gemma from Google, and Mixtral from Mistral.
Company Growth: Groq has rapidly expanded its developer base to over 360,000 individuals utilizing GroqCloud™ for creating AI applications, indicating strong growth and adoption of its platforms in the AI technology sector.
About the Company: Groq is a pioneer in AI inference solutions, focusing on delivering high-speed, high-quality, and energy-efficient AI computing through its innovative hardware and software platforms. The company's advancements in AI inference are transforming how businesses deploy and utilize AI, making it faster and more accessible across various industries.