Together AI, a pioneering neocloud provider specializing in NVIDIA GPU clusters and tailored AI infrastructure, has successfully secured $800 million in a Series C funding round, elevating its valuation to $8.3 billion, as announced on Wednesday. Founded in 2022, the company has swiftly made significant strides in the AI landscape.
The funding round was spearheaded by Aramco Ventures, with key contributions from investors including Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, NVIDIA, March Capital, Pegatron, and SentinelOne’s S Ventures, among others.
Previously, together AI raised $305 million in a Series B funding round 16 months ago, which positioned the company at a $3.3 billion valuation. Early on, it demonstrated strong financial backing with a $102.5 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins, along with participation from NVIDIA and Emergence Capital in 2023.
Rumors about this latest investment began circulating in March, when reports indicated that the firm was aiming for $1 billion in funding at a valuation of $7.5 billion. If those figures were correct, it suggests that Together AI opted for a smaller tranche of capital while negotiating more favorable terms with venture capitalists than it had initially sought.
This significant capital influx coincides with Together AI reporting annual bookings exceeding $1.15 billion as of the last quarter. As more organizations embrace cost-effective open-source models through neocloud services like those offered by Together AI, there is less inclination to invest in the high costs associated with proprietary token models for their AI deployments.
The company claims that open-source model usage across the sector has tripled in the past year, backed by insights from AI gateway OpenRouter, which is also thriving on this trend. Together AI boasts thousands of customers, including notable names such as Cursor, Cognition, and Decagon.
The growing interest in neoclouds has attracted considerable venture capital investment across the board. For instance, Upscale AI recently raised $500 million through a Series A extension at a valuation of $2 billion, while TensorWave, which specializes in AMD GPU clusters, secured $350 million in its Series B funding, achieving a valuation of $1.55 billion just last month.
Co-founded by Vipul Ved Prakash, who sold his previous venture Topsy to Apple in 2013 for over $200 million, Together AI also includes Stanford professor Percy Liang and associate professor Ce Zhang from ETH Zürich and the University of Chicago among its leadership team.
