AI Chip Startup Groq Nears $600 Million Fundraising Deal
According to sources cited by Bloomberg, AI chip startup Groq is currently in discussions to secure a fresh round of funding amounting to $600 million, with a valuation close to $6 billion. However, the deal has not been finalized yet, and there may be changes to the terms.
It is worth noting that Groq had previously raised $640 million at a valuation of $2.8 billion in August 2024, indicating a significant increase in valuation within a year. The startup had already accumulated approximately $1 billion in previous fundraising rounds.
The upcoming funding round is being spearheaded by Disruptive, a firm based in Austin, as reported by Bloomberg. In a previous funding round in November, BlackRock led the investment with participation from Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco, KDDI, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Founded by Jonathan Ross, who had previously been involved in developing Google’s Tensor Processing Unit chip, Groq made its debut in 2016 after operating in stealth mode.
This latest fundraising endeavor follows Groq’s recent announcement in May regarding an exclusive partnership with Bell Canada to support the telco’s extensive AI infrastructure project. In April, Groq collaborated with Meta to enhance AI infrastructure for faster Llama 4 inference capabilities. At the time of writing, neither Disruptive nor Groq has responded to requests for comments.
Correction: This story has been updated to rectify an error in reporting the date of the previous fundraising round.
