Fireworks AI in talks for new funding round, valuation up to $40 billion

Fireworks AI, an AI infrastructure startup founded in 2022 by former Meta and Google AI team members—CEO Lin Qiao, who previously led Meta’s PyTorch team—focuses on providing enterprises with hashrate and software leasing services to support running, fine-tuning, and deploying open-weight models and custom large language models. In July this year, the company announced completion of its $1.5 billion Series D funding round, valuing it at $17.5 billion; it also disclosed annualized revenue exceeding $1 billion and over 40 trillion tokens processed daily, with approximately 95% of its business volume derived from models customized to specific client requirements. In October, Fireworks AI initiated preliminary discussions for a new funding round, targeting a valuation range of $30–40 billion—marking a significant increase over its July Series D valuation. However, according to informed sources, negotiations remain in early stages, and this valuation target remains subject to adjustment; Fireworks AI has declined to comment. Notably, while these financing talks are underway, the company disclosed a security incident this month: internal credentials were used without authorization, resulting in unauthorized access to certain customer account data.