Lambda vs Modal

Lambda Raises $4B Before Planned IPO

AI cloud provider Lambda is raising up to $4 billion at a $14.5 billion pre-money valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. Coatue Management and Blackstone are leading the round, which could be Lambda's last private funding before a planned 2027 IPO. The company's backlog grew from $15 billion in June to $50 billion in September, driven largely by a $35 billion commitment from Anthropic. Lambda recently secured an additional $1 billion in debt to fund data center buildouts. The company had reportedly considered an IPO this year but delayed amid market uncertainty. If it goes public, it will join other Nvidia-backed neoclouds like CoreWeave and Nebius.

• Lambda is raising up to $4 billion at a $14.5 billion pre-money valuation.
• Coatue Management and Blackstone are leading the funding round.
• Lambda's backlog grew from $15 billion in June to $50 billion in September.

Lambda raises $1B debt to buy Nvidia chips

Lambda, an AI cloud company that purchases GPUs and leases compute to customers, has secured $1 billion in private, short-dated debt to buy Nvidia AI chips that it will lease to Microsoft, according to Bloomberg. The deal was reportedly arranged by JP Morgan Chase and reflects Lambda’s strategy of using targeted loans to fund GPU infrastructure deployments that can be rapidly monetized. The move follows earlier financing rounds including a $1 billion secured credit facility in May and a $926 million term loan for Nvidia GB300 GPUs. Lambda is also reported to be in talks for a $3 billion pre-IPO round; the company previously raised $1.5 billion at a $5.43 billion post-money valuation last November, per PitchBook. Bloomberg data shows banks and tech firms have raised over $400 billion in AI-related debt in 2026 so far.

• Lambda raised $1 billion in private, short-dated debt to buy Nvidia AI chips to lease to Microsoft (per Bloomberg).
• Bloomberg reports the debt deal was arranged by JP Morgan Chase.
• In May, Lambda closed a $1 billion secured credit facility and also closed a $926 million term loan to fund Nvidia GB300 GPUs.

Modal Hits $1B ARR, Raises $750M Series D at $15.75B Valuation

Modal, an AI infrastructure startup, has achieved a $1 billion annualized run rate and raised a $750 million Series D at a $15.75 billion valuation, led by Accel. CEO Erik Bernhardsson noted that usage has tripled since the Series C and grown over 15x year-over-year. The company's Sandboxes product, launched in 2023, now generates $300 million in run rate (about a third of revenue), with nearly three billion spun up and scaling to a million concurrent. Modal aggregates demand from thousands of customers to offer elastic GPU capacity across nearly 25 cloud providers, moving away from fixed-term contracts and exploring NVIDIA alternatives. Key focuses include agentic workloads, GPU price declines, and future plans for training and batch products. CTO Akshat Bubna also emphasized the growing need for 'millions of concurrent sandboxes' and advanced infrastructure for AI agents.

• Modal raised a $750M Series D at a $15.75B valuation, led by Accel.
• Modal crossed $1B in annualized run rate.
• Usage has tripled since Series C and grown over 15x year-over-year.

Runtime recap: the full keynote, VM Sandboxes, Modal Clusters, and more.

Modal announces a runtime product update with VM Sandboxes and Modal Clusters, as highlighted in a blog post.

Modal Labs closing in on $750M round at $15.75B valuation

AI inference infrastructure provider Modal Labs is nearing a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation, according to a source. This would more than triple its valuation from $4.65 billion in May. The round comes amid surging demand for inference services, with other startups like Baseten, Fireworks, and Fal also raising at higher valuations. Modal Labs, founded in 2021 by Erik Bernhardsson and Akshat Bubna, provides infrastructure for training and running AI models without managing servers. The company has surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue as of May. The funding talks follow a security incident in July where a customer's data was compromised, but Modal's platform was not breached.

• Modal Labs is nearing a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation.
• The round would more than triple Modal Labs' valuation from $4.65 billion in May.
• Modal Labs has surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue as of May.