AI reasoning company Baseten completes $300 million financing, reaching a valuation of $5 billion

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing informed sources, AI inference-focused startup Baseten has completed a $300 million funding round, reaching a valuation of $5 billion, nearly double its previous round valuation.

This funding round was led by venture capital firm IVP and Alphabet's independent growth fund CapitalG, with chip giant Nvidia also participating in the investment, injecting $150 million into Baseten as part of the deal. This transaction highlights Nvidia's active positioning in the AI inference space with startups.

As the industry's focus shifts from training models to large-scale deployment and inference (i.e., AI models generating outputs based on inputs), Nvidia is increasing its investment in related startups while continuing to invest in its own AI chip customers.