Groq Secures $750 Million Funding Round Valuing Company at $6.9 Billion
Key Points
- Groq raised $750 million, valuing the company at $6.9 billion.
- Disruptive led the round; new investors include BlackRock, Neuberger Berman and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners.
- Existing backers Samsung, Cisco and Altimeter also participated.
- The financing more than doubles Groq’s valuation from the previous year’s $2.8 billion round.
- Groq’s LPUs are marketed as inference engines, positioned as a non‑GPU AI solution.
- Products are offered via cloud services and on‑premises hardware racks.
- The company now powers AI applications for over two million developers.
- Founder Jonathan Ross previously helped create Google’s Tensor Processing Unit.
AI chip startup Groq announced a $750 million financing that lifts its post‑money valuation to $6.9 billion. The round, led by Disruptive with participation from BlackRock, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and existing backers such as Samsung, Cisco and Altimeter, more than doubles the company’s valuation from a year ago. Groq’s LPUs – marketed as inference engines – are positioned as a non‑GPU alternative for AI workloads, and the firm now claims to power the AI applications of over two million developers.
Funding Milestone
Groq confirmed a fresh $750 million infusion that brings its post‑money valuation to $6.9 billion, surpassing earlier speculation of a $600 million raise at roughly a $6 billion valuation. The financing was led by investment firm Disruptive and included new capital from BlackRock, Neuberger Berman and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, while existing investors Samsung, Cisco, D1 and Altimeter also participated.
Growth Trajectory
The latest round more than doubles the valuation Groq achieved in the prior August cycle, when it raised $640 million at a $2.8 billion valuation. According to PitchBook, Groq’s total capital raised now exceeds $3 billion.
Technology Positioning
Groq distinguishes its hardware from traditional GPUs by branding its chips as LPUs – language processing units – and describing its products as inference engines optimized for rapid AI model execution. The offerings are available both as a cloud service and as on‑premises hardware racks that combine integrated compute nodes. Customers can run open versions of popular models from Meta, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, Google and OpenAI.
Market Impact
The company asserts that its solutions deliver comparable or superior AI performance at significantly lower cost than competing options. Groq now reports serving more than two million developers, a rise from 356,000 developers noted a year earlier.
Leadership
Founder Jonathan Ross, a former Google engineer who helped develop the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), leads Groq’s push to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market.