Palo Alto-based AI infrastructure firm, Modular, secured $100 million in funding on Thursday to advance its artificial intelligence developer platform.
The funding round led by the Palo Alto venture firm General Catalyst along with participation from GV (Google Ventures), SV Angel, Greylock and Factory, brings the startup's total funding to $130 million.
Founded in early 2022 by former Google engineers Chris Lattner and Tim Davis, Modular’s next-generation AI developer platform aims to make it easier to build AI models by integrating various tools onto one central platform.
“We have been able to achieve tremendous momentum in only 20 months,” Davis, the company's president, said in the press release. “The financing will allow us to accelerate our momentum even more.”
The company, which came out of stealth mode in May, already has a community of over 120,000 developers, with “many of the world’s leading technology companies” already using the infrastructure, Davis said.
Later said the new funding will be used to hire more engineers in order to meet demand for the platform.
The funding comes at a time when more than half of AI decision-makers in top companies are facing cost barriers to deploying the latest artificial intelligence tools, according to S&P Global's 2023 Global Trends in AI report. It surveyed 1,500 AI decision-makers in companies with more than 250 employees.