After Nvidia’s $20B not-acqui-hire, AI chip startup Groq reportedly raising $650M

Groq is looking to raise $650 million in new funding from existing investors, sources tell Axios, as it leans into its inference neocloud business that relies on its homegrown AI chip and systems.

In December, Groq struck one of those not-an-acquisition agreements with Nvidia for a reported $20 billion, which involved the departure of some top-level senior Groq employees to the chip giant and the licensing of Groq’s hardware technology to Nvidia. That deal was good news for the startup’s investors, who got paid out in cash with what would have been Nvidia’s largest purchase, if the deal was a full-acquisition, Axios reports.

Now these investors have been asked to pony up and back the company’s plans to grow its inference cloud business, which lets developers and enterprises host their inference-hungry apps. Inference is the processing that happens after an AI prompt and is currently a much bigger need in the AI world than model training.

The new direction is led right now by Groq’s interim CEO and CFO, Adam Winter and Matt Eng, respectively. 

In some ways, the $650 million in funding is guaranteed. Axios reports that Groq’s backers Disruptive and Infinitium have agreed to fill the round should other existing investors not want their pro-rata shares.