Groq Raises $350M, Pivots to Nvidia-Powered Cloud

Groq has raised $350 million led by Disruptive, with planned participation from Nvidia, valuing the startup at $3.5 billion — down from $6.9 billion last year. The drop follows Nvidia hiring Groq's founder and CEO Jonathan Ross in a $20 billion licensing deal, gutting the company's leadership team. Once focused on building its own AI chips to rival Nvidia, Groq has since pivoted to operating Nvidia-powered data centers as a neocloud provider. The fresh funds will help Groq scale from 54 to over 200 megawatts by 2027, serving more than 6 million developers across 13 global data centers.