Groq, AI chip startup, raises $750 million at $6.9 billion valuation

Artificial intelligence chip startup Groq Inc. has raised $750 million in a new funding round, pushing its post-money valuation to $6.9 billion. The announcement underscores the surging investor appetite for companies building alternatives to meet the global shortage of chips and computing power needed for AI workloads.

Details of the Funding Round

The round was led by Disruptive, with major participation from:

• BlackRock Inc.
• Neuberger Berman Group LLC
• Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners
• Existing backers such as Samsung Electronics Co., Cisco Systems Inc., D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter.

Groq also revealed that a large U.S.-based West Coast mutual fund joined the investor group.

According to CEO Jonathan Ross, the new funds will be directed toward expanding data-center capacity, including new facilities slated to open both this year and next. He added that Groq plans to announce its first Asia-Pacific location later this year.

Competing in the AI Chip Market

The AI hardware sector is currently dominated by Nvidia Corp., which controls the market for processors that train advanced AI models. Nvidia is also working aggressively to secure dominance in the inference market—where AI models are run after training.

Startups like Groq, as well as big tech companies such as Google (Alphabet Inc.), are developing rival AI chips and, in many cases, offering computing services powered by them.

“We’ve had customers come to us asking for more capacity than we can satisfy at the moment,” Ross noted, reflecting the intense demand.

Groq’s Growing Footprint

Groq sells both chips and data-center computing power built on its own processors. The company currently operates 13 facilities across the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

Notably, Groq powers some of the services of Saudi AI company Humain, including its newly launched Humain chat platform. The company also supported the release of OpenAI’s GPT-OSS model in Saudi Arabia.

Ross disclosed that Groq’s capacity expanded by more than 10% in the past month, yet all of that new capacity is already in use. He declined to reveal the company’s total available capacity.

Funding Process and Revenue Projections

The financing round was initially expected to close at around $600 million, but Groq later reopened it to allow additional participants. Bloomberg and The Information previously reported details of the deal.

In July, The Information reported that Groq had cut more than $1 billion from its 2025 revenue projections. A source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the company expects the reduced revenue to instead materialize in 2026. Ross declined to comment on the sales outlook.