Hugo Face was exposed to potential buyers to discuss the sale of companies with at least $13 billion in valuation. Informed reports indicate that the negotiations have not yet been agreed and that the company is communicating with the bank to assess the different offers.
This anecdotal trade took place at a time of continued warming of AI infrastructure services. Just recently, Stripe announced the purchase of OpenRouter at $7 billion, with increased market interest in bottom AI tools and platforms.
The Hugging Face past round of financing took place in 2023, when the post-tax valuation was $4.5 billion. That round of financing was led by Salesforce Ventures, with the participation of institutions such as Alphabet, GV, IBM Ventures.
The CEO of the company, Clem Delange, recently stated in a podcast by TechCrunch Equity that the company was close to being profitable and had only recently begun to use funds raised three years earlier. He also stressed that companies focused more on long-term sustainable development than on short-term profits or maximizing financing.
- Hugging Face turned down $500 million in investment earlier this year.
- The estimate was about $7 billion.
- Companies say they don't want a single lead investor to influence decision-making.
From a public statement, Delange emphasizes the long-term responsibility of communities and platforms. He mentioned that Hugging Face provided a platform for developers to share data and models and that long-term trust relationships needed to be prioritized.