据一位知情人士透露，AI推理基础设施提供商Modal Labs正接近完成由Accel领投的7.5亿美元融资轮次，投后估值达157.5亿美元。此前Axios和彭博社曾报道过该交易的其他细节，但本轮融资的具体规模尚未公开披露。

此轮融资将使Modal的估值较四个月前宣布3.55亿美元上一轮融资时达到的46.5亿美元增长逾两倍。

Modal Labs拒绝置评。

这笔交易正值推理服务需求飙升之际。推理是指对已训练好的AI模型运行以生成输出结果的过程，尤其来自依赖开源模型的客户群体。其他专注于推理的初创公司也在洽谈以高得多的估值筹集新资金。据彭博社报道，Baseten正接近以260亿美元的估值获得资本注入，较其6月的价值翻倍。与此同时，据The Information报道，Fireworks以及为视频和图像生成提供推理服务的初创公司Fal也已在与新融资轮次的投资者进行洽谈，这将显著提升它们的估值。

尽管这些公司的收入增长迅速，但其利润率微薄，主要原因在于获取或租赁计算资源的成本依然非常高昂。Fireworks在7月宣布其年化收入已达到10亿美元，较前一年增长五倍。据知情人士透露，多家专注于推理的初创公司预计将在年底前达到同样的收入里程碑。

Modal由首席执行官Erik Bernhardsson和首席技术官Akshat Bubna于2021年创立。Bernhardsson是瑞典人，曾在Spotify等公司花费超过15年时间组建数据团队，他在那里帮助构建了音乐流媒体服务的推荐系统；他还曾担任在线抵押贷款机构Better.com的首席技术官。Bubna在麻省理工学院（MIT）学习数学和计算机科学，曾是数据标注初创公司Scale AI的早期员工工程师，之后联合创立了Modal。

这家总部位于纽约、估计拥有约150名员工的公司，让开发者无需管理自己的服务器即可训练AI模型并运行其他计算密集型工作负载。其官网列出的客户包括编程初创公司Cognition、AI音乐生成器Suno、金融科技公司Ramp以及出版平台Substack。

据Modal当时向路透社透露，截至5月，其年化收入已超过3亿美元。

此次融资洽谈发生在两个月前Modal卷入AI行业最受关注的网络安全事件之一之后。7月下旬，Modal披露一名客户的数据在针对Hugging Face的 rogue OpenAI 代理发起的网络攻击行动中遭到泄露。

Modal首席技术官Akshat Bubna表示，此次漏洞可追溯至客户自身代码中的缺陷，而非Modal的系统。“我们得知一名Modal客户发布了一个未经身份验证的端点，允许互联网上的任何人使用他们的沙箱执行代码，”Bubna当时在向媒体发表的声明中表示，“该恶意代理利用了这一点。Modal的平台并未以任何方式受到侵害。”他补充道。

AI inference infrastructure provider Modal Labs is nearing a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation that includes the investment, according to a source with knowledge of the funding. The size of the round has not been previously reported, though Axios and Bloomberg have reported other details of the deal.

The new round would more than triple Modal’s valuation from the $4.65 billion it reached when it announced its $355 million previous fundraise just four months ago.

Modal Labs declined to comment.

The deal comes amid soaring demand for inference services, the process of running an AI model that’s already been trained to generate outputs, particularly from customers relying on open-source models. Other inference startups are also in talks to raise fresh capital at much higher valuations. Baseten is nearing an infusion of capital at a $26 billion valuation, doubling what it was worth in June, Bloomberg reported . Meanwhile, Fireworks and Fal, a startup providing inference for video and image generation, have also talked to investors about new rounds that would significantly increase their valuations, according to The Information .

Although revenue for these companies has been growing rapidly, their margins are thin, largely because the cost of acquiring or leasing compute remains very high. Fireworks announced in July that its annualized revenue had hit $1 billion , a fivefold increase from the year before. Multiple inference-focused startups are expected to reach the same revenue milestone by year’s end, according to our source.

Modal was founded in 2021 by CEO Erik Bernhardsson and CTO Akshat Bubna. Bernhardsson, who is Swedish, spent more than 15 years building data teams at companies including Spotify, where he helped build the music-streaming service’s recommendation system, and Better.com, the online mortgage lender, where he served as chief technology officer. Bubna studied math and computer science at MIT and was an early staff engineer at Scale AI, the data-labeling startup, before co-founding Modal.

The company, which is based in New York and estimated to have roughly 150 employees, lets developers train AI models and run other compute-heavy workloads without managing their own servers. Its web page lists customers that include the coding startup Cognition, the AI music generator Suno, the fintech company Ramp, and the publishing platform Substack.

As of May, Modal had surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue, it told Reuters at the time.

The fundraising talks come two months after Modal was pulled into one of the AI industry’s most closely watched security incidents. In late July, Modal disclosed that a customer’s data had been compromised as part of the same hacking campaign carried out by a rogue OpenAI agent against Hugging Face.

Modal Chief Technology Officer Akshat Bubna said the breach traced back to a flaw in a customer’s own code, not to Modal’s systems. “We’re aware a Modal customer published an unauthenticated endpoint that allowed anyone on the internet to use their sandboxes for code execution,” Bubna said in a statement to press outlets at the time. “This was used by the rogue agent. Modal’s platform was not compromised in any way,” he’d added.