Baseten, the AI inference startup, is set to raise about $2bn at a valuation of up to $30bn, more than double its price in June. Rebecca Torrence and Bailey Lipschultz reported the round for Bloomberg on Friday, citing people familiar with the plans.

The round will come in two tranches, according to Bloomberg’s sources. One values Baseten at $26bn and the other at $30bn. Sands Capital, an existing investor, is set to lead. TNW has not independently verified the report.

Up from $13bn in June

Baseten sells software that lets companies run AI models in production, a step known as inference. It announced its Series F on 22 June, a $1.5bn round led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners and Spark Capital. Sands Capital co-led that round. It valued Baseten at $13bn, according to Bloomberg. Baseten said at the time that its revenue had grown 20 times in a year.

Baseten was founded in 2019. This week it released joey-1, an open decision model that it prices at a penny per million tokens.

A crowded inference market

Investors are putting large sums into inference, the work of running AI models once training is done. Fireworks AI, which Bloomberg calls Baseten’s closest competitor, raised $1.5bn at a $17.5bn valuation in July.

In a tranched round, investors buy into the same company at two different prices. Venture firms have been using the structure to push up AI startup valuations, Bloomberg reported on 22 October.