Fireworks AI Seeks New Funding at $30 Billion to $40 Billion

By Grace Kim

Fireworks AI is discussing a new funding round at a $30 billion to $40 billion valuation, up from $17.5 billion in July, according to people familiar with the matter.

The talks remain early, and the valuation targets could still change. Fireworks AI declined to comment.

The people familiar said the prospective jump reflects investor appetite for businesses selling the computing power and tools fueling the AI boom. The discussions come as Fireworks AI works through the fallout from a recent security incident.

The proposal would mark another sharp reset after two disclosed funding rounds. Fireworks AI has not stated the amount it wants to raise or a lead investor for the prospective round.

What is Fireworks AI trying to fund?

Last month, The Information reported that Fireworks AI had considered a round at $30 billion. The current discussions also include a $40 billion target, according to the people familiar.

• In July, Fireworks AI announced a $1.5 billion Series D at a $17.5 billion valuation. Atreides Management, Index Ventures and TCV led the round.
• Nvidia, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures participated in the Series D.
• The Series D followed a $250 million Series C at a $4 billion valuation in late 2025. Lightspeed, Index Ventures and Evantic co-led that round.

Fireworks AI's two completed rounds supply the comparison points: $4 billion in late 2025 and $17.5 billion in July. No amount, lead investor or other terms for the proposed round were stated. The target range sits above both baselines.

What does Fireworks AI sell?

Business Insider described Fireworks AI as a company that rents computing infrastructure and software that lets businesses run, fine-tune and deploy open-weight and custom AI models.

Rather than build a consumer chatbot to rival ChatGPT, the company sells what it calls specialized intelligence: models customized for a customer's proprietary data, workflows and use cases.

Business Insider reported that Fireworks AI was founded in 2022 by veterans of Meta and Google's AI efforts. CEO Lin Qiao previously led the PyTorch team at Meta. Cofounders include former Meta infrastructure engineers and a former leader of Google's Vertex AI.

The cofounders combine Meta infrastructure experience with Google's Vertex AI experience, according to the report. In July, Fireworks AI disclosed three scale figures:

• Annualized revenue above $1 billion.
• More than 40 trillion tokens served per day.
• Customer-tailored models accounted for 95% of those tokens.

The operating story centers on customized business models rather than a consumer chatbot.

Who competes with Fireworks AI?

Business Insider identified Together AI, Baseten and Replicate as model-infrastructure startup rivals.

The report also named Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle as cloud competitors. It described Fireworks AI's layer of the AI stack as highly competitive.

The list matters because Fireworks sells both computing infrastructure and model software. Its named rivals span specialist startups and cloud providers, according to the report. The funding will land in a market shared by both groups.

What did the security incident involve?

Fireworks AI said it identified unauthorized use of internal credentials earlier this month. According to the company, the misuse allowed an intruder to access data from some customer accounts.

The initial disclosure did not specify how many customer accounts were affected, what types of data the intruder accessed or whether operations were disrupted.

CEO Lin Qiao wrote on X: "We take this seriously and will be transparent about what happened and what we find."

He added: "I'm personally committed to turn this attack into the most formidable security response in AI Infra."

The report did not link the breach directly to the funding discussions. As Fireworks AI pursues a $30 billion to $40 billion valuation, Qiao's promised account of the breach is the clearest unresolved issue.