Modal and Baseten in Talks for New Funding Rounds at Higher Valuations

According to Bloomberg, AI inference platform startups Modal Labs and Baseten are negotiating new funding rounds. Modal Labs is reportedly seeking a valuation of approximately $15 billion, triple its valuation from four months ago, while Baseten is targeting a $26 billion valuation, doubling its $13 billion valuation from June. The surge in demand for model inference services and computing infrastructure is driven by increased enterprise AI adoption and the development of compute-intensive tools like AI agents.