NVIDIA invests $150 million in AI inference company Baseten

PANews January 21 News, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, the AI inference-focused startup Baseten has completed a $300 million funding round, valuing the company at $5 billion, nearly double the valuation of the previous round. The funding was led by venture capital firms IVP and Alphabet’s independent growth fund CapitalG. Chip giant NVIDIA also participated in the investment and injected $150 million into Baseten as part of the deal. This transaction highlights NVIDIA’s active positioning in the AI inference startup space. As industry focus shifts from training models to large-scale deployment and inference (i.e., AI models generating outputs based on inputs), NVIDIA is increasing its investments in related startups while continuing to invest in its own AI chip customers.