Home / Technology / Open-Source AI Tool vLLM Secures $150M Seed Funding
Open-Source AI Tool vLLM Secures $150M Seed Funding
23 Jan
Summary
- vLLM's creators launched Inferact, raising $150 million seed funding.
- The startup Inferact achieved an $800 million valuation post-funding.
- This funding reflects investor interest in inference acceleration technologies.
The creators behind the open-source AI tool vLLM have officially transitioned the project into a venture-backed startup named Inferact. This new entity has successfully raised $150 million in seed funding, achieving a valuation of $800 million. The funding round saw participation from prominent investors, with Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-leading the investment.
This development follows the recent commercialization of a similar project, SGLang, highlighting a significant trend in the AI sector. As the industry shifts focus from AI model training to deployment in real-world applications—a process known as inference—technologies like vLLM that enhance speed and affordability are garnering substantial investor attention.
Both vLLM and SGLang originated from UC Berkeley's lab, incubated in 2023. Inferact CEO Simon Mo, one of vLLM's original creators, noted that major clients, including Amazon's cloud service and a prominent shopping application, are already utilizing vLLM.
