VAST Data announced on April 22 that its latest financing round valued the company at $30 billion, a leap of more than threefold compared with its 2023 valuation. The Series F round raised about $1 billion in combined primary and secondary capital and was led by Drive Capital and Access Industries, the company said.
Existing backers including Fidelity Management & Research Company, NEA and Nvidia participated in the round alongside new investors, according to VAST. The New York-based firm, which counts Nvidia as a supporter, said the capital will be deployed to broaden its global footprint, deepen partner relationships and pursue strategic transactions intended to widen its technology platform.
Founded in 2016, VAST Data develops software designed to help organizations store and process very large datasets used in training and operating artificial intelligence models. The company said it serves clients such as Elon Musk’s xAI, cloud provider CoreWeave and the U.S. Air Force, among others. VAST was valued at $9.1 billion in 2023.
The company highlighted its commercial expansion with CoreWeave as part of its recent activity. In November, VAST signed a $1.17 billion commercial agreement with CoreWeave, extending an existing partnership between the two firms.
Investor appetite for infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence - including data centers, semiconductors, cloud capacity and high-performance computing - has been a major driver of interest in companies that underpin AI systems, VAST said. That surge in demand for the hardware and services needed to train and run increasingly complex AI models has helped lift valuations across the sector.
"The VAST platform is a key enabling technology for next gen AI infrastructure initiatives - providing a modern, flexible data architecture for Gen AI applications and agentic workflows," said Larry Feinsmith, managing director and head of Global Tech Strategy, Innovation and Partnerships at JPMorgan Chase.
VAST characterized the proceeds from the Series F as primarily intended to support geographic expansion, strengthen strategic partnerships and pursue transactions that broaden its technology stack. The company said the new capital includes both primary funding to fuel growth initiatives and secondary capital that provided liquidity for existing stakeholders.
The funding round follows a pattern of heightened investment into firms that supply the compute, storage and networking building blocks for AI workloads. VAST said the infusion will enable it to scale its platform to meet customer demand and pursue opportunities that expand its role in AI infrastructure.