Groq raises $650M, hires new executives after Nvidia licensing deal
8 reported
AI chipmaker Groq announced a $650 million funding round on Monday, six months after Nvidia signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement for Groq’s technology and hired away founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other employees. The round was led by Disruptive, a Dallas-based late-stage investment firm founded by Alex Davis, who also serves as Groq’s chairman, and Infinitum, a Fort Lauderdale hedge fund. Groq did not disclose its new valuation; it was last valued at $6.9 billion following a $750 million round in September. In response to the Nvidia deal, Groq has pivoted to its neocloud business, which has grown to 13 data centers across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and APAC, serving over five million developers and thousands of AI companies, according to the company. Groq has also hired replacement executives, including Alan Rice as COO, Sinclair Schuller as CTO, and Rakesh Malhotra as CPO. The company’s future success depends on how competitive its inference cloud can remain now that key hardware IP is shared with Nvidia.
What’s reported
Groq announced a $650 million funding round on Monday.
The round was led by Disruptive and Infinitum.
The raise comes roughly six months after Nvidia signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement for Groq’s technology and hired away founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other employees.
Groq did not disclose its new valuation; it was last valued at $6.9 billion following a $750 million round in September.
Groq has pivoted to its neocloud business, which has grown to 13 data centers across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and APAC.
The company says it serves over five million developers and thousands of AI companies, processing trillions of tokens each week.
New hires include Alan Rice as COO, Sinclair Schuller as CTO, and Rakesh Malhotra as CPO.
Nvidia announced its own hardware cluster, the Nvidia Groq 3 LPX inference hardware system, at its GTC event in March.
Key figures
Jonathan Ross: founder and former CEO of Groq, hired away by Nvidia
Sunny Madra: former president of Groq, hired away by Nvidia
Doug Wightman: co-founder of Groq, became CEO after Ross left
Alex Davis: founder of Disruptive, chairman of Groq
Alan Rice: new COO of Groq, previously at xAI and Meta
Sinclair Schuller: new CTO of Groq, previously co-founded Apprenda and Nuvalence
Rakesh Malhotra: new CPO of Groq, previously at Microsoft and co-founded Nuvalence
Jason Droege: CEO of Scale AI, mentioned as example of a company that rebounded after a similar deal
Sources: TechCrunch
