(Bloomberg) — Snowflake Inc.’s talks to acquire startup Reka AI for more than $1 billion fell through, thwarting an effort by the software company to bring more generative AI muscle in-house.
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Reka makes large language models – artificial intelligence software trained on large swaths of the internet that can be used for a range of tasks, such as captioning images or as customer support chatbots. Snowflake, which makes cloud-based data analytics tools, was in talks to acquire Reka for more than $1 billion, Bloomberg reported last week. Those negotiations have ended, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
Snowflake is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Wednesday. Snowflake and Reka have not commented on the negotiations.
Snowflake sees generative AI as an accelerator for its business. It released its own large language model, Arctic, in April. The company also allows customers to use third-party AI models, like those from Reka, on their data in Snowflake.
Reka was founded in 2022 by researchers at Google and Alphabet Inc.’s Meta Platforms Inc.. It was valued at about $300 million in a 2023 investment round that included funding from Snowflake’s venture arm, according to with a Reuters report.
As the field of generative AI has grown in popularity and excitement, several large technology companies have rushed to partner with or acquire startups working with the technology.
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