Inferact Secures $150 Million to Revolutionize AI Inference with vLLM
In a significant development within the artificial intelligence sector, the team behind the open-source project vLLM has transitioned their initiative into a venture-backed enterprise named Inferact. This strategic move has been bolstered by a substantial $150 million in seed funding, elevating the company’s valuation to an impressive $800 million.
The funding round was co-led by prominent venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners, confirming earlier reports about vLLM’s financial backing from a16z. This investment underscores the growing interest in technologies that enhance the efficiency and affordability of deploying AI models, a process known as inference.
Inferact’s emergence mirrors the recent commercialization of the SGLang project, now operating as RadixArk. Sources indicate that RadixArk secured capital at a $400 million valuation, led by Accel. Both vLLM and SGLang originated from the UC Berkeley lab of Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica in 2023, highlighting the lab’s pivotal role in fostering innovative AI solutions.
The shift in focus within the AI industry from merely training models to effectively deploying them in real-world applications has brought inference technologies like vLLM and SGLang into the spotlight. These tools are designed to optimize the performance of AI models, making them faster and more cost-effective, thereby attracting significant investor attention.
Inferact’s CEO, Simon Mo, one of the original creators of vLLM, revealed that the tool is already in use by major entities, including Amazon’s cloud services and its shopping application. This adoption signifies the practical utility and scalability of vLLM in enhancing AI-driven services.
The substantial seed funding will enable Inferact to accelerate the development and commercialization of vLLM, aiming to set new standards in AI inference technology. By focusing on improving the deployment phase of AI models, Inferact is poised to play a crucial role in the broader adoption and integration of artificial intelligence across various industries.
