Vast Data has set Silicon Valley abuzz with talk of an audacious new fundraising round that could catapult its valuation to an eye-popping $25 billion.
That figure towers over the $9 billion milestone achieved just six months ago, leaving observers to speculate whether the company can secure such a leap. While the deal is still in progress and numbers might shift, insiders say investor enthusiasm remains intense.
Vast stands out for its software that unites CPU, GPU, and storage hardware from big names like Supermicro, HPE, and Cisco. Traditional data storage often separates data into various classes depending on how frequently it is accessed. Vast wants to disrupt that model entirely.
Instead, the company has honed in on flash storage and a unified approach that wipes away the lines between old data and new data. Its platform corrals mountains of structured, semi structured, and even unstructured data in a single hub.
The company claims this approach slashes the time it takes to access critical information while saving money on the massive model training and inference costs that come with artificial intelligence. Businesses gravitating toward machine learning have taken notice.
Big Names Choose Vast for AI Storage
Vast’s roster of customers reads like a who’s who in tech and entertainment, with Pixar and ServiceNow on its list, as well as Elon Musk’s venture xAI. Next generation AI outfits — such as CoreWeave and Lambda — rely on Vast’s technology to underpin their own offerings, highlighting the broad impact of Vast’s storage platform.
The company’s financials tell a story of momentum. Vast reached $200 million in annual recurring revenue at the time of its last funding round and has maintained growth multiples that most startups can only envy, between two and three times year over year. Chief Executive Renen Hallak has also signaled that Vast has enjoyed positive free cash flow for several years in a row, a rare badge of honor among high growth tech startups.
Competition remains fierce. Pure Storage, which commands a market valuation near $17 billion, stands as one direct rival. Another upstart, Weka, recently raked in $140 million at a $1.6 billion valuation.
Vast isn’t stopping at data storage. Its engineering teams are quietly building a new database architecture meant to rival heavyweight players like Databricks, aiming to serve companies that want even closer ties between their storage and analytics work.
Before this latest attempt to raise new funds, Vast had pulled in $381 million from some of the industry’s top investors, including Fidelity, NEA, BOND Capital, and Drive Capital.
As the company eyes its ambitious valuation, the only certainty is that the spotlight on record-setting fundraising round and the ongoing investor enthusiasm for AI-driven companies will keep getting brighter.
