AI Startup Groq Gets a $2.8 Billion Valuation After Another Funding Round

By
IBL News
-

IBL News | New York

Groq Inc. — a startup based in Mountain View, California, that designs semiconductors and software for AI systems — raised $640 million in new funding at a valuation of $2.8 billion.

The founding round was led by BlackRock Inc. funds and included backing from the investment arms of Cisco Systems and Samsung Electronics.

This Series D round almost triples its valuation from $1 billion in a funding round in 2021.

The company has entered into competition against incumbents such as the leader Nvidia, as well as Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ross said in an interview on Bloomberg Television that Groq plans to use the funding to build about 108,000 language processing units, hire significantly, and consider some acquisitions.

The company said that former Intel executive Stuart Pann is joining Groq as its chief operating officer.

Additionally, Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, will become an adviser to the startup. Ross said LeCun’s push for open-source models, such as Meta’s Llama, allowed Groq to grow.

“Groq would not exist today if not for open source,” Ross said. We built the best chips, but if we didn’t also have the software, we would not be able to demonstrate that.”

Open-source models allow people to get into the AI business without having to train models.