AI startup FAL gains USD4.5b valuation with Sequoia-led funding: Bloomberg

The news: AI startup FAL reached a USD4.5 billion valuation ($6.78 billion) in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

The numbers: FAL’s third fundraise this year brought in USD140 million in fresh funding, seeing it triple its valuation from a previous round in July, Bloomberg reported. Other investors in the Series D round included Kleiner Perkins, Alkeon Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners.

The context: FAL, which used to be known as Features & Labels Inc., offers a platform for developers to access a range of AI models and has rapidly grown in the past 12 months as its tools become more widely used in work tasks.

The company boasts companies like Adobe, Shopify, Canva and Quora as customers and hit USD200 million revenue in October, when it secured around USD250 million in capital at a USD4 billion valuation.