- Snowflake’s $1B deal to acquire AI startup Reka AI failed.
- The acquisition aimed to boost Snowflake’s generative AI capabilities.
- Reka AI raised $58M, valued at $300M in 2023.
The billion-dollar discussions between Snowflake and AI startup Reka AI have ended without a deal, according to a Bloomberg report citing sources.
The report did not provide further details on the failed acquisition attempt.
A frosty farewell to the deal
For Snowflake, the acquisition could have boosted its cloud-based data analytics offerings, positioning generative AI as a key growth driver.
The company’s revenue growth had slowed due to clients’ reduced software spending, while the generative AI industry remains an emerging market.
Reka AI, founded by researchers from DeepMind, Google, and Meta, recently launched Reka Core, a multimodal language model capable of working with images, audio, and video.
The company claims Core is “competitive” with leading models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google across industry-accepted metrics.
AI dreams put on ice
In a 2023 funding round, Reka AI secured US$58 million at a valuation of around US$300 million. One of the participating investors was Snowflake’s investment wing.
The AI startup, based in San Francisco, has two Southeast Asian founders: Singaporean Yi Tay as the chief scientist and CEO Dani Yogatama, who grew up in Indonesia.
To read the original article: https://www.techinasia.com/snowflake-discontinues-talks-buy-sporean-cofounded-ai-firm-1b-sources
