AI 推理初创公司 Fal 完成 13 亿美元融资，估值翻倍至 160 亿美元
AI inference startup Fal doubles its valuation to $16B as demand surges
旧金山 AI 推理初创公司 Fal 在新一轮融资中筹集 13 亿美元，由 Bessemer Venture Partners 领投，Nvidia、Sound Ventures 和 T. Rowe Price 参投，估值达 160 亿美元，是 4 月 80 亿美元估值的两倍。Fal 同时宣布 E 轮和 F 轮，两轮合计融资 16.5 亿美元，其中较早的 E 轮由 Sequoia 领投。Fal 托管并运行 AI 视频、图像和音频模型，今年早些时候年化收入已超过 8 亿美元；原文指出 Baseten、Fireworks AI、Modal 等推理服务商也在快速增长，但因算力采购或租赁成本高，毛利率仍然偏薄。
正文
Fal , a San Francisco-based startup that hosts and runs AI video, image, and audio models, has raised $1.3 billion in its latest funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Nvidia, Sound Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. The deal values Fal at $16 billion, double its $8 billion valuation in April, Bloomberg reported .
The startup announced its Series E & F rounds at the same time, noting that a combined $1.65 billion was raised across both. (Sequoia led the earlier round.)
The latest round (Series F) comes amid soaring demand for inference services, the process of running an AI model that’s already been trained to generate outputs, particularly from customers relying on open-source models. Fal surpassed $800 million in annualized revenue earlier this year, Bloomberg’s report noted.
Companies providing inference services, including Baseten, Fireworks AI, and Modal, have also been growing rapidly and raising large funding rounds at higher valuations . But their gross margins remain thin because of the high cost of buying or leasing compute, according to several people familiar with inference companies’ financials.
Fal was co-founded in 2021 by Burkay Gur, a former Coinbase machine learning leader and Oracle engineer, and Gorkem Yurtseven, who was previously a developer at Amazon.