Last Month, Techeconomy reported Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence platform, xAI, was raising a $6 billion Series B funding round, at an $18 billion valuation, one of the largest in the growing AI industry.
The funding has been raised with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company. Investors including Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding also contributed to the raise for xAI.
The AI platform, which was launched in July 2023, has quickly made progress in the AI sector. Following its establishment, the company introduced the Grok-1 model on the social media platform X in November.
Recently, xAI announced further advancements with the Grok-1.5 model, which came with long context capabilities, and the Grok-1.5V model, which includes image understanding features.
The open-source release of Grok-1 has facilitated numerous applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model, contributing to its rapid enhancement.
The new funds will be used to launch its first commercial AI products, develop advanced infrastructure, and expedite research and development for future technologies.
xAI is creating advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and beneficial for all humanity. The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe.
Elon Musk is driving xAI to compete with other major players like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Musk, who also leads Tesla and co-founded OpenAI, has recently distanced himself from OpenAI, due to issues over its direction and partnerships.
Since its formation, xAI has launched the Grok-1.0 model, a rival to ChatGPT, and made it available to Premium+ users on X for a subscription fee of $16 per month. In April, the company released the Grok-1.5 model and introduced multimodal capabilities. Despite its advancements, Grok’s news summary feature on X has faced criticism for generating misleading information.
On future possibilities, xAI plans to utilize the latest financing round to bring its first set of products to market even as it builds sophisticated infrastructure and enhances innovations. The company is also likely to explore partnerships to extend Grok’s reach beyond X.
Additionally, xAI is actively seeking to expand its team and is hiring for various roles. The company encourages individuals interested in contributing to the future of AI to apply through its careers page.
This funding will help xAI achieve its mission and continue its growth and innovation drive in the AI industry.
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