Together AI — a neocloud specialized in AI that leases Nvidia GPU clusters and other dedicated AI infrastructure — has secured an $800 million Series C at an $8.3 billion valuation, as announced by the company on Wednesday. Established in 2022, the firm has grown rapidly.

This funding round was spearheaded by Aramco Ventures, with contributions from Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, Nvidia, March Capital, Pegatron, SentinelOne’s S Ventures, among others.

Previously, Together AI completed a $305 million Series B at a $3.3 billion valuation approximately 16 months ago. The company entered the market with substantial funding, having raised $102.5 million in a Series A financing round led by Kleiner Perkins, joined by Nvidia and Emergence Capital in 2023.  

Speculations about this round emerged in March when The Information reported the company was aiming for $1 billion in funding at a $7.5 billion valuation. If that report’s figures were correct, it indicates that Together AI opted for a smaller investment but possibly secured a more favorable deal from venture capitalists compared to its earlier aspirations.

This significant capital influx arrives as Together AI declares annual bookings exceeding $1.15 billion in its latest quarter, with businesses increasingly opting for capable yet significantly cheaper open-source models through neocloud providers like Together AI. They are shifting towards this choice rather than incurring high costs for tokens associated with proprietary frontier models for all their AI needs.

According to Together AI, the usage of open-source models across the sector has tripled in the past year, supported by research from another entity benefiting from this trend, AI gateway OpenRouter. The company claims to have thousands of paying customers, including Cursor, Cognition, and Decagon.

Neocloud services have become highly sought-after for VC investments beyond just Together AI. Upscale AI recently raised a Series A plus in an extension amounting to $500 million at a $2 billion valuation; likewise, TensorWave — which specializes in GPU clusters from AMD — secured a $350 million Series B at a $1.55 billion valuation last month, among other recent cases.

Together AI was co-founded by Vipul Ved Prakash (shown above, center) following his sale of the social media search platform Topsy to Apple in 2013 for a reported sum exceeding $200 million. His co-founders at Together AI include Stanford professor Percy Liang (above, left) and associate professor Ce Zhang from ETH Zürich/University of Chicago (above, right).