All Access

Enterprise Software Deals

Enterprise Software Deals Alerts

Alert

AI unicorn Baseten is "looking very aggressively" for possible deals that can speed up its trajectory to be the "AWS of inference," co-founder and CEO Tuhin Srivastava tells Axios Pro.

Driving the news: Baseten last week raised a $300 million round led by IVP, CapitalG and Nvidia at a $5 billion post-money valuation — more than double its valuation from just less than five months ago.

Srivastava said both rounds were completed in less than 48 hours.

State of play: Investors are pouring millions into the market for AI inference — the process of AI models analyzing new data to make real-time decisions.

Investors believe inference is key to unlocking the enterprise market, especially fulfilling the true potential of agentic AI.

By the numbers: Baseten grew ARR 12x last year and has thousands of customers, Srivastava said.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Axios: What are you looking to do with the money?

Srivastava: "We'll build everything in the data loop. So you do inference, you collect more data, you do evaluation on that data, you do some reinforcement learning with that new data of more models, which drives more inference. Over time, we want to own that complete inference loop. And that's really when we think about the platform play and (being) the AWS for inference, the first truly inference native cloud."

You just made your first acquisition last month, a reinforcement learning startup called Parsed. How acquisitive will you continue to be?

"We are looking very aggressively around, finding the best talent and finding the teams that are most aligned with us, and finding things that fit into that inference (loop) that I just described. A lot of that we will build ourselves. A lot of it will require some early-stage teams to help ... We're acquiring small companies that are pretty new and understand the market we're playing in.

Why are inference startups seeing so much investment right now?

"Inference demands have really, really accelerated over the last 12 months. You need to be using more models and doing more inference to be competitive as a business ... So many of the most exciting uses of AI are these agentic approaches and identity approaches with the user requiring a lot more inference.

I think we're all seeing the same thing, which is, this is the biggest market that might ever exist."

Do you plan to raise money again in the next six to 12 months?

"Never say never, but I'll be honest with you, it's not on my radar right now ... But again, this market just keeps getting bigger and bigger."

Baseten to be acquisitive as AI inference heats up, co-founder says

Baseten just raised money at a $5 billion valuation.

Baseten's CEO Tuhin Srivastava stands in front of a building.

Baseten co-founder and CEO Tuhin Srivastava Photo: Courtesy of Baseten

AI unicorn Baseten is &quot;looking very aggressively&quot; for possible deals that can speed up its trajectory to be the &quot;AWS of inference,&quot; co-founder and CEO Tuhin Srivastava tells Axios Pro.Driving the news: Baseten last week raised a <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="$300 million round" data-vars-click-url="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-invests-150-million-in-ai-inference-startup-baseten-fe7ede72?mod=tech_lead_pos3" data-vars-content-id="e1dc5fd9-2d36-4203-a5db-e7ad67099a20" data-vars-headline="Baseten to be acquisitive as AI inference heats up, co-founder says" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-invests-150-million-in-ai-inference-startup-baseten-fe7ede72?mod=tech_lead_pos3" target="_blank">$300 million round</a> led by IVP, CapitalG and Nvidia at a $5 billion post-money valuation — more than double its valuation from just less than <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="five months" data-vars-click-url="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250905680113/en/Baseten-Secures-%24150M-Series-D-as-the-Premier-Inference-Platform-for-AIs-App-Layer" data-vars-content-id="e1dc5fd9-2d36-4203-a5db-e7ad67099a20" data-vars-headline="Baseten to be acquisitive as AI inference heats up, co-founder says" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250905680113/en/Baseten-Secures-%24150M-Series-D-as-the-Premier-Inference-Platform-for-AIs-App-Layer" target="_blank">five months</a> ago.

topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

stock-market-news

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

charlotte

boulder

detroit

kansas-city

columbus

austin

dallas

atlanta

washington-dc

nw-arkansas

chicago

indianapolis

nashville

richmond

colorado-springs

houston

san-francisco

seattle

boston

des-moines

salt-lake-city

philadelphia

denver

phoenix

new-orleans

miami

twin-cities

raleigh

san-antonio

portland

san-diego

tampa-bay

cleveland

huntsville

pittsburgh

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

Baseten to be acquisitive as AI inference heats up, co-founder says

What to read next