Hugging Face, AI Startup, Surpasses $4.5 Billion Valuation After $235 Million Funding Round with Support from Tech Titans
- ByStartupStory | August 26, 2023
Hugging Face, an AI startup has announced an impressive valuation of $4.5 billion subsequent to a successful $235 million funding round. This financing round garnered support from prominent global tech giants including Salesforce, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, and Nvidia.
This substantial funding signifies the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) as the next significant frontier in technology, attracting substantial investments from key players in Silicon Valley. Notably, the triumph of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has propelled other AI startups such as Inflection AI (backed by Microsoft) and Runway (supported by Google) to secure their own funding.
The competitive landscape among leading tech companies has notably benefited Nvidia, whose chip designs play a pivotal role in generative AI technologies like ChatGPT. This year, Nvidia’s shares have surged threefold, reaching record highs following the release of their recent financial results.
Major industry names, including Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Qualcomm, IBM, Amazon, and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, also participated in Hugging Face’s funding round. Hugging Face specializes in an open-source platform that facilitates the development of applications using machine learning. The injected funds will be utilized to expand their team and make technological advancements, building upon their current workforce of 170 individuals.
Hugging Face’s CEO, Clément Delangue shared that a surge in demand has led to a significant increase in revenue, which is projected to multiply fivefold this year. Delangue envisions a future where AI becomes an integrated component of every tech company’s operations within the next five years.
Following the successful funding round, Delangue said –
“Super excited to welcome our new investors Salesforce VC, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM, and Sound Ventures, who all participated in Hugging Face’s $235M Series D at a $4.5B valuation to celebrate the crossing of 1,000,000 models, datasets and apps on the platform,” he said.
“These partners alone already shared over 1,000 open models and datasets and have over 10,000 users on Hugging Face. It takes a village to democratize good machine learning thanks to open-source and we’re just getting started!” he added.
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