Vast Data raises $1 billion, triples valuation to $30 billion as AI infrastructure demand surges

Nvidia-Backed Vast Data Raises $1 Billion, Triples Valuation to $30 Billion

Nvidia Corp.-backed Vast Data Inc., which makes software for storing data for artificial intelligence tasks, said it has raised about $1 billion and more than tripled its valuation to $30 billion. The funds are divided between primary and secondary capital, in which employees and early investors can sell their shares, giving Vast Data flexibility as to whether and when to take the steps toward an initial public offering, Renen Hallak, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview. The round was coled by Drive Capital and Access Industries, and included participation from existing investors like Nvidia, Fidelity and NEA. Vast Data, which counts JPMorgan Chase & Co., Elon Musk's xAI and CoreWeave Inc. as customers, last raised funds in 2023, valuing the company at $9.1 billion. Vast Data is profitable on an operating basis and has generated $4 billion in bookings since its founding a decade ago, most of that in the past year, Hallak said. The company is considering using the new money for acquisitions and investments in other firms in the AI ecosystem, he said. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Plus Signed UpPlus Sign UpPlus Sign Up By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. The company sells software and appliances that aim to replace more traditional storage and database products to better enable customers to access their information for use in training and running AI programs. Vast Data is trying to win over more and larger business customers to add to a list that's currently more populated by AI clients. The company also is partnering with funds in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore to help expand its presence in those regions. Vast offers "world-changing technology coupled with the right timing and a very attractive business model," said Chris Olsen, co-founder of Drive Capital. The challenge is getting people to switch from their existing technology. "The reality is none of those systems are broken. They work really well." But if you sell Vast as a way to set up AI workloads, it's a successful pitch, he said. The company hired Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapero about 18 months ago partly to get the company in shape for a public share sale. "We should be ready by the end of this year and then we get to decide if and when to pull the trigger," Hallak said. "What really matters to me is how do we grow faster."

VAST Data valued at $30 billion in latest funding round

April 22 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence infrastructure provider VAST Data said on Wednesday that it was valued at $30 billion in its latest funding round, which included primary and secondary capital of about $1 billion. The round, series F, was led by ⁠Drive Capital, with Access Industries acting as co-lead, and included participation from existing investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company, NEA, and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab. New York-headquartered VAST Data develops storage technology specifically designed for large AI data centers, enabling efficient ⁠data movement between graphics processors (GPUs) made by the likes of Nvidia. Its clients include companies such as Elon Musk's xAI ⁠and CoreWeave (CRWV.O), opens new tab. "The scale and speed of AI adoption are creating a new class of ⁠infrastructure company," said Chris Olsen, co-founder and partner at Drive Capital. "VAST ⁠is emerging as the clear leader in this category." Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Nvidia backs AI company Vast Data at $30 billion valuation

Record funding has already been raised this year by AI companies globally, with investors writing cheques to the tune of $280.5 billion, according to Dealroom. Vast Data announced a $1 billion funding round at a $30 billion valuation on Wednesday, with Nvidia among those backing the AI company. Founded in 2016, Vast makes software infrastructure for managing large amounts of data, with a focus on AI applications. The company says it supports projects powering millions of GPUs. Customers include CoreWeave, Mistral, the U.S. Air Force and Cursor. The fresh round sees Vast more than triple the $9.1 billion valuation it hit when it last raised in 2023. Record funding has already been raised this year by AI companies globally, with investors writing checks to the tune of $280.5 billion, according to Dealroom. More than $170 billion has been raised by OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Drive Capital and Access Industries led Vast Data's Series F. Fidelity Management and Research Company and NEA participated, as well as Nvidia. The financing included primary and secondary capital. "The scale and speed of AI adoption are creating a new class of infrastructure company," said Chris Olsen, cofounder and partner at Drive Capital, in a statement. "VAST is emerging as the clear leader in this category, with the architecture and momentum to support the world's most demanding AI environments." The company said it surpassed $4 billion in cumulative bookings and exited the previous fiscal year with more than $500 million in committed annual recurring revenue. Nvidia has ramped up its financial backing of private startups in the past year as it's looked to cement its position at the heart of the AI boom. So far this year, the chip giant contributed to major funding rounds for AI labs OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, alongside others, including neocloud Nscale and autonomous driving company Wayve.

Vast Data raises $1B at $30B valuation as AI infrastructure demand accelerates

Vast Data raises $1B at $30B valuation as AI infrastructure demand accelerates Vast Data Inc. today said it has raised about $1 billion in a late-stage Series F funding round that values the company at $30 billion amid growing demand for infrastructure to support artificial intelligence workloads. Founder and Chief Executive Renen Hallak (pictured) said the size of the round was driven by investor interest rather than a predefined capital target. "We never go out looking for funding rounds," he said. "We get inbounds all the time. We ask them, how much do you want to invest? And that's the number that it added up to." Vast said it has more than $4 billion in cumulative bookings and over $500 million in committed annual recurring revenue, along with positive free cash flow and operating profitability. Hallak said the 10-year-old company has been cash-flow positive for several years and does not require external capital to fund operations. The $30 billion valuation is more than triple the $9.1 billion valuation the company received after raising a $118 million Series E round in late 2023. "It's been all driven by the AI revolution," Hallak said. "There's a new stack getting formed." AI has organizations rethinking how data, computing and applications are integrated. Vast positions itself as a provider of a unifying software layer that sits between hardware and AI models. "We're the middle layer, the software infrastructure layer in this new stack," Hallak said. The company originally built its platform as a storage manager. Since then, it has evolved into what he calls a "disaggregated shared-everything architecture," designed to address tradeoffs between performance, scalability and cost in distributed systems. The Vast platform now integrates data management, analytics and orchestration. That progression reflects the market's larger shift from model training to inference and real-time decision-making, where data access, latency and resilience become more critical. In an interview with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE's streaming news service, Hallak said enterprises that are now moving AI projects into production environments require more robust infrastructure. "They need it to be simple," he said. "They need it to be secure." Vast is also extending its platform to support agent-based AI systems, which require coordination across distributed environments and stricter controls over how data is accessed and shared. "We need a place for agents to share experiences and store memories and communicate with each other in a safe way that's observable," he said. The financing includes both primary and secondary capital, providing liquidity for early investors and employees while bringing in strategic partners that can support planned geographic expansion and ecosystem development. Hallak said the company continues to grow across the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific, with additional expansion planned, particularly in Latin America, India and China. He said the company's platform is already deployed in production environments supporting large-scale AI workloads, including systems with thousands of graphics processing units. The company said it is supporting millions of GP use in production. Hallak said Vast's architecture gives it an advantage over hyperscale clouds built on older distributed computing models. "The hyperscalers built 10 years before we started," he said. "Now that a new stack is getting built, they're either going to partner with us or the need to start from scratch." Despite concerns about a potential AI investment bubble, the CEO said demand for infrastructure will continue to grow as new applications emerge. "Five years from now, AI is many orders of magnitude bigger than it is now," he said. The company is preparing for a potential initial public offering but has not set a timeline. "My expectation is that we will be ready by the end of this year," Hallak told theCUBE, adding that there are no firm IPO plans. For now, Vast is focused on expanding its platform as enterprises shift from experimentation to production-scale AI deployments. "In production means that it has to be up 100% of the time and extremely secure," Hallak said. "We have clusters that are multi-exabyte in size with hundreds of thousands of GPUs." The round was led by Drive Capital LLC, co-led by Access Industries Inc. Existing investors Nvidia Corp., Fidelity Management & Research LLC and New Enterprise Associates Inc.

Vast Data CEO Renen Hallak On AI, Growth And A $30 Billion Valuation

Vast Data has closed its new Series F round of funding to the tune of $1 billion, giving the company a $30 billion valuation -- a massive foundation on which to increase its presence in the AI industry with what it calls its AI operating system, which moves beyond its high-performance storage technology to include integrating databases, compute orchestration, and a suite of tools tailored for agentic workloads. Vast Data may once have been known as a storage company but now sees itself as an AI operating system provider. And when a company like Vast Data, which Tuesday unveiled the close of a new round of funding that brought it $1 billion in cash and a massive valuation of $30 billion, it is free to define itself however it wishes. However, according to CEO Renen Hallak, that definition as an AI operating system is exactly what Vast Data has become. [Related: NetApp Sues Former CTO, Alleges He Took Trade Secrets To Rival Vast Data] "We're the AI operating system company," he told CRN. "There's a new stack that's getting built. Jensen [Huang, Nvidia founder and CEO,] defined it perfectly. It's power, chips, software infrastructure, models, and applications. Those are the five layers. We are building that middle layer." Seven years ago, Vast Data emerged with storage technology that aimed to provide lightning-fast access to vast amounts of information, a move that laid the foundation for the company becoming a cornerstone for early AI research and training, Hallak said. And as AI evolved, so did the demands on data platforms. Over time, clients' needs pushed Vast Data to expand its offerings, integrating databases, compute orchestration, and a suite of tools tailored for agentic workloads. The company's commitment to innovation is evident in its approach to technology development, Hallak said. "It was all in-house," he said. "We can't take any open source or acquire companies and bolt on their technologies because every one of our pieces is based on our disaggregated, shared-everything architecture. That's how we get to the level of scale and performance and resilience and simplicity required in this new era." There's a lot going on at Vast Data, the AI market, and the massive investments in AI focused companies. To learn more, read CRN's complete conversation with Hallak, which was lightly edited for clarity.

Nvidia-backed VAST Data valued at $30 billion in latest funding round

April 22 (Reuters) - VAST Data said on Wednesday it was valued at $30 billion in its latest funding round, growing more than threefold since 2023, helped by strong interest in companies that build the infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence. The New York-based company, which is backed by Nvidia, said the Series F round fetched it about $1 billion in primary and secondary capital, and was led by Drive Capital and Access Industries. Existing investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company, NEA and Nvidia, also participated in the round, along with new parties. The rapid adoption of AI has fueled demand for data centers, semiconductors, cloud capacity and high-performance computing needed to train and run increasingly complex models, driving investor interest in infrastructure providers that support the ecosystem. VAST Data, founded in 2016, builds software that helps companies store and process large volumes of information used to train and run artificial intelligence systems. The company, which counts Elon Musk's xAI and CoreWeave and the U.S. Air Force, among others, as its customers, was valued at $9.1 billion in 2023. "The VAST platform is a key enabling technology for next gen AI infrastructure initiatives - providing a modern, flexible data architecture for Gen AI applications and agentic workflows," said Larry Feinsmith, managing director and head of Global Tech Strategy, Innovation and Partnerships at JPMorgan Chase. Primary proceeds from the latest raise will be used to expand VAST Data's global footprint, strengthen partnerships and pursue strategic transactions to broaden its technology platform. The company in November signed a $1.17 billion commercial agreement with cloud provider CoreWeave, extending their existing partnership. (Reporting by Pritam Biswas and Prakhar Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Shinjini Ganguli)