Groq, a competitor of Nvidia in the development of AI chips, is reportedly set to be valued at $2.5 billion in a new funding round led by Blackrock. The company is rumored to be raising $300 million with the help of Morgan Stanley, although Groq and Blackrock have not commented on the matter. This new funding would more than double Groq’s value from its 2021 round of $300 million led by Tiger Global Management and D1 Capital Partners. Groq, founded in 2016 by former Google executive Jonathan Ross, specializes in chips designed for inference AI processing. The company’s chips, known as “language processing units,” are said to be over 10 times faster than traditional chips and cost significantly less.
Groq faces competition in the hardware inference market from companies like Point72 SiMa.ai, Dmatrix backed by Microsoft, and Untether.AI backed by Intel, as they all try to compete with Nvidia. Another Nvidia rival, Cerebras, is rumored to have filed for an IPO confidentially. Groq’s latest funding round is part of a larger dispute at Social Capital, where two partners were fired in March for allegedly trying to raise outside funds for Groq, a company that Social Capital initially backed eight years ago. The terms of the new funding round have not been finalized and could change before completion. So far, Groq has raised a total of $367 million in funding.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/groq-could-reach-2-5-billion-in-new-funding-round-2024-6