Bloomberg: Modal Labs in funding talks at a ~$15B valuation, Baseten at $26B

Two startups that provide platforms for running artificial intelligence models are in funding talks that could at least double their valuations, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Modal Labs is negotiating a round at a roughly $15 billion valuation, while Baseten is in talks at a $26 billion valuation.

Modal Labs: from $4.65B in May to about $15B

For Modal Labs, the reported figure would be roughly triple the $4.65 billion valuation from its round four months ago; the company raised $355 million in May, Reuters previously reported. Modal helps AI companies get access to the chips they need to run AI tools, and offers a sandbox product that lets developers test code — increasingly written with AI — before it goes into production. Modal Labs did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Baseten: a $26B price tag, five months after the last round

Baseten's talks follow a $1.5 billion Series F announced on June 22 at a $13 billion valuation, led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners and Spark Capital, with Sands Capital and Wellington Management as co-leads. The company said revenue had grown about 20x year over year, with more than 1 billion inference calls a day across 87 clusters and 18 clouds. A round at $26 billion would double that June figure.

Why investors keep paying up

Both companies sit in the inference layer — the infrastructure that serves model outputs to applications. Bloomberg described the talks as a sign of surging investor demand for the infrastructure services that help businesses run AI models. Neither round is complete, and neither company has confirmed the new valuations.