The Hugging Face startup, which operates in the area of artificial intelligence, announced that it managed to raise investment funds for $235 million following the results of the Series D funding round.
Currently, this company, which is at the initial stage of existence, is estimated at $4.5 billion. Salesforce Ventures, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm Ventures, IBM, and Sound Ventures became the startup’s new investors who took part in the latest funding round. The relevant information is contained in the message of Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue, which was published on Thursday, August 24, on LinkedIn.
According to the head of the startup, new investors have already shared more than 1 thousand open models and datasets. He also said that his company currently has more than 10 thousand customers. In his opinion, to fully democratize high-quality machine learning with open source, it is necessary to create an appropriate large-scale system, which the startup has already started.
Currently, there are a total of more than 1 million people, datasets, and applications on the Hugging Face platform. This was also reported by Clem Delangue in a publication posted on LinkedIn.
The head of the startup said that the funds received during the last round of financing will be spent on gaining the best talents. According to him, a team of specialists with a high level of professional competence is a guarantee that the company will have opportunities for full-fledged competition in the artificial intelligence space, which is in a state of active development and scaling, and also requires mobility and efficiency from the participants of the so-called AI race, because otherwise it is impossible to survive in this technological confrontation.
Currently, there is increased investment activity in the area of machine intelligence. This state of affairs is logical and natural since AI has the potential for a profound transformation of all spheres of life and there are no signs that the trend of large-scale implementation of advanced technology will begin to reverse. Large corporations and venture capitalists are showing considerable interest in the artificial intelligence industry. The boom in the area of AI began last year after the release of the chatbot ChatGPT developed by specialists of OpenAI, supported by Microsoft.
Hugging Face differs from other startups in the sphere of artificial intelligence in that it uses a so-called collaborative approach to creating configurations of digital consciousness. Standard practice provides that the company that developed the artificial intelligence model applies a policy of strict control over copyright compliance and provides access to its products on a paid basis. Hugging Face in this case adheres to a different strategy. The startup provides its platform so that developers within this virtual space can freely exchange AI model codes and data arrays.
Hugging Face also offers developers tools through the use of which it is possible to significantly facilitate the process of implementing open-source artificial intelligence configurations. The startup’s website provides users with the ability to upload models and weights. The company also develops software tools called libraries that help in the implementation of artificial intelligence configurations, performance evaluation, and cleaning of data sets.
In a conceptual sense, the startup’s platform is in many ways similar to the GitHub code repository. The company believes that most companies whose activities are carried out in the sphere of artificial intelligence will at some point want to create their own AI model or technology based on machine intelligence. Hugging Face, focusing on the mentioned belief, defines its goal as providing developers with the tools that are necessary to achieve success.
Clem Delangue expressed hope that AI developers will rely on the platform of his startup. He also noted that the concept of the firm’s activities is one of the reasons for receiving investments from large companies.
As we have reported earlier, Serve Robotics Raises $30 Million.
