US-based advanced computing technology provider Groq completed a $300m series C round yesterday featuring subsidiaries of electronics manufacturer TDK and algorithmic trading firm XTX Markets.
Hedge fund manager Tiger Global Management and investment firm D1 Capital Partners co-led the round, with TDK and XTX participating through TDK Ventures and XTX Ventures respectively. It valued the company at over $1bn according to Bloomberg
The round was also backed by The Spruce House Partnership, Addition, GCM Grosvenor, Xⁿ, Firebolt Ventures, General Global Capital, Tru Arrow Partners, Boardman Bay Capital Management and Infinitum Partners.
Groq provides compute accelerators for use in advanced computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. The cash will support the growth of its business together with hiring and product development.
The company said it has now raised $367m since it was founded in 2016, TDK Ventures having provided an undisclosed amount in August 2020. The cash would have been part of a series B round sized at $52.3m as of 2018, according to a securities filing.
The series B round featured Social Capital, the venture capital firm which had already led Groq’s $10m series A round the previous year.
Jonathan Ross, founder and chief executive of Groq, said: “AI is limited by existing systems, many of which are being followed or incrementally improved upon by new entrants.
“No matter how much money you throw at the problem, legacy architectures like [graphics processing units] and [central processing units] struggle to keep up with the growing demands of artificial intelligence and machine learning.”
“Our mission is more disruptive: Groq seeks to unleash the potential of AI by driving the cost of compute to zero.”
Image courtesy of Groq, Inc.
