Fal Doubles Its Valuation to $16 Billion in Six Months With a $1.3 Billion Round to Buy More Compute for Image and Video Models
Fal, which runs image, video and audio AI models for developers, has raised $1.3 billion at a $16 billion valuation, double its April valuation, Bloomberg reported. Existing investor Bessemer led the round, with Nvidia, T. Rowe Price, Sound Ventures and HOF Capital taking part. Fal hit $800 million in annualized revenue earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter, and its CEO says demand outran capacity this summer.
Fal's round shows investors paying up for the companies that run AI models, not only the ones that train them. Fal, a San Francisco startup that hosts image, video and audio AI models for developers, has raised $1.3 billion at a $16 billion valuation, double the $8 billion it was valued at in April, Bloomberg reported, according to The Next Web and TechCrunch.
Who invested and why#
Existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which closed in October, with Nvidia, T. Rowe Price, Sound Ventures and HOF Capital also investing, The Next Web reported. Fal reached $800 million in annualized revenue earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter cited in the report.
"We hit a point in summer where we were not able to serve our customers and had to rate limit them," chief executive Burkay Gur said. Fal will spend the money on more computing power and on growing its 185-person team, and it has started fine-tuning video models with the companies that make them, sometimes for licensing fees or a share of revenue, The Next Web reported.
The inference race#
Rival Modal raised $750 million at a $15.75 billion valuation in October, and Fireworks raised $1.5 billion at $17.5 billion in July, The Next Web said.
Limits#
- The revenue figure comes from an unnamed person familiar with the matter, not from Fal's accounts.
- Fal has not disclosed how much compute it plans to buy or from whom.