AI chip startup Groq is in negotiations for a new funding round, which is expected to raise $600 million and value the company near $6 billion. According to Bloomberg, this deal has not been finalized yet, and specific terms may still change.

In August 2024, Groq successfully raised $640 million, with a valuation of $2.8 billion. Within just one year, the company's valuation has nearly doubled, a growth rate that has drawn attention. Previously, Groq had raised approximately $1 billion in total.

This funding round is led by the Texas-based investment firm Disruptive. Notably, the financing in November last year was led by BlackRock, and it also received participation from multiple institutions such as Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco, KDDI, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.

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Groq was founded in 2016 by Jonathan Ross, who previously developed Tensor Processing Unit chips at Google. Since going out of the public eye, the company has begun to show its ambitions in the AI chip field.

The background of this funding round is that Groq reached an exclusive partnership with Bell Canada in May to promote its large AI infrastructure project. In addition, in April, Groq also partnered with Meta to provide AI infrastructure for the latter, to accelerate the reasoning capability of Llama4. These strategic collaborations not only demonstrate Groq's influence in the industry but also support its fundraising activities.

Although Disruptive and Groq did not immediately respond to requests for comment from journalists, the market's attention to this emerging company is increasing, and its future development is worth looking forward to.