- 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.
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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.
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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