Fireworks AI, a startup that helps developers access powerful artificial intelligence chips and use AI models, has raised $250 million in a C-round of investment. The company's co-founders include two Ukrainians.
Fireworks AI, a startup that helps developers access powerful artificial intelligence chips and use AI models, has raised $250 million in a C-round of investment. The company's co-founders include two Ukrainians.
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Evantic, with participation from existing investor Sequoia Capital. Fireworks AI is valued at $4 billion, WSJ reports. According to the company, the fundraising was split into two parts: a primary round of $230 million and a secondary round of $20 million from the same investors.
Fireworks AI was founded in 2022 as a business focused on efficient training and running of AI models. The company’s solutions helped the Quora chatbot increase its response speed threefold. The company’s co-founders include Ukrainians — Dmytro Dzhulgakov, who graduated from Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, and Dmytro Ivchenko, a graduate of KPI.
“Considering revenue of $280+ million and insane growth, a 14x multiplier is quite healthy for such a fast-growing startup… Powerful,” commented Andriy Brodentsky, a private equity analyst at Horizon Capital, on the investment.
According to Fireworks AI CEO Lin Qiao, the company plays a critical role in giving developers virtual access to modern chips to run open-source AI models. The startup also helps them optimize those inferences and tune AI models.
The new investment will be used to expand the startup's team to over 150 new AI researchers, engineers, product, sales, and marketing staff, as well as to purchase graphics processing units (GPUs).
Qiao noted that Fireworks AI's annual revenue this year exceeded $280 million, and the company currently has 115 employees.
