AI inference startup Baseten reportedly raising $1.5B months after its last mega-round

AI 推理初创公司 Baseten 据悉在上一轮巨额融资仅数月后，正寻求 15 亿美元融资

AI inference company Baseten is close to finalizing a stunning $1.5 billion funding round at a $13 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reports. 据《华尔街日报》报道，AI 推理公司 Baseten 即将完成一轮令人瞩目的 15 亿美元融资，估值达到 130 亿美元。

Just five months ago, the startup announced that it had raised a $300 million Series E at a $5 billion valuation. And that round was just nine months after raising a $150 million Series D. 就在五个月前，这家初创公司刚刚宣布以 50 亿美元的估值完成了 3 亿美元的 E 轮融资。而那轮融资距离其 1.5 亿美元的 D 轮融资也仅过去了九个月。

If finalized, this latest round would represent a 160% increase in valuation in less than half a year. However, the WSJ reports that this is a split-priced round, a tactic startups are using to boost their headline valuation and make lead investors look good on paper. 如果此轮融资最终敲定，意味着该公司在不到半年内估值增长了 160%。然而，《华尔街日报》指出，这是一轮“分段定价”（split-priced）融资，这是初创公司用来提高账面估值并使领投方在纸面上看起来更具优势的一种策略。

Some investors in this latest funding round are reportedly coming in at a $13 billion valuation, while others at $11 billion, sources told the Journal. This deal is said to be co-led by Spark Capital, Sands Capital, Altimeter Capital, and Wellington Management. 据知情人士向《华尔街日报》透露，本轮融资中，部分投资者的入场估值为 130 亿美元，而另一些则为 110 亿美元。据悉，该交易由 Spark Capital、Sands Capital、Altimeter Capital 和 Wellington Management 共同领投。

Launched in 2019, Baseten is a startup benefiting from what The Next Wave hailed the “inference gold rush,” in which VCs are pouring enormous amounts of money into companies building the inference layer. Inference is what the model does after a user submits a prompt. Baseten 成立于 2019 年，这家初创公司正受益于《The Next Wave》所称的“推理淘金热”，风险投资机构正向构建推理层的公司投入巨额资金。推理是指模型在用户提交提示词（prompt）后所执行的操作。

Baseten promises to handle inference quickly while controlling costs by routing requests to the best-for-task model, especially to competent, less-expensive open source alternatives. Baseten 承诺通过将请求路由至最适合任务的模型（尤其是那些能力强且成本更低的开源替代方案），在控制成本的同时实现快速推理。