AI startup Modular announced on Wednesday that it has raised $250 million in a funding round, valuing the company at $1.6 billion. The round nearly triples Modular’s valuation from two years ago and was led by the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, with DFJ Growth and existing investors including GV, General Catalyst, and Greylock also participating.
Founded in 2022 by former engineers from Apple and Google, Modular has developed a platform that allows developers to run AI applications across different computer chips without rewriting code for each one. Its customers include cloud providers such as Oracle and Amazon, as well as chipmakers Nvidia and AMD.
Nvidia currently controls over 80 per cent of the high-end AI chip market, largely due to its proprietary CUDA software, which ties over four million developers into its ecosystem. Modular aims to provide a neutral software layer, which it calls a “Switzerland” strategy, enabling developers to work across multiple hardware platforms.
Chris Lattner, cofounder and CEO of Modular, said: “What we’re focused on is not like pushing down Nvidia or crushing them. It’s more about enabling a level playing field so that other people can compete.”
The company plans to sell its software directly to enterprises on a consumption basis and through revenue-sharing partnerships with cloud providers. Investors are optimistic about a multi-vendor future for AI hardware. Sam Fort, partner at DFJ Growth, described Modular as “VMware for the AI era,” supporting workloads across CPUs and other AI platforms.
Modular, which currently employs about 130 people, will use the new funds to expand its engineering and go-to-market teams. The capital will also support the company’s move from focusing solely on AI inference to entering the AI training market.
With its vision of creating an AI “hypervisor,” Modular aims to allow AI workloads to run seamlessly across different hardware vendors, potentially reshaping the AI computing ecosystem and offering developers greater flexibility.
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