Fal, a San Francisco company that runs AI models for software developers, has raised $1.3 billion. Bessemer Venture Partners led the funding round, which closed in October, with Nvidia and other investors taking part. The deal values Fal at $16 billion, double its $8 billion value in April.
The company announced its latest funding round and an earlier one together. Across the two deals, it raised $1.65 billion, with Sequoia leading the earlier round. The latest investment comes as demand for Fal's services grows rapidly.
Fal provides inference, which means running AI models after they have been trained to produce images, video, or audio. Earlier this year, its annualized revenue passed $800 million. That figure expresses its sales pace as a yearly amount rather than measuring sales over a completed year.
Chief executive Burkay Gur said demand became so strong during the summer that Fal had to limit how much customers could use its services. The company plans to spend the new money on additional computing resources and expand its 185-person team. It has also begun working with model makers to further train video models, sometimes receiving licensing fees or a share of revenue.
