{"id":235415,"date":"2026-06-22T22:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-as-australias-blackbird-makes-record-bet\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T00:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T04:15:12","slug":"ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-as-australias-blackbird-makes-record-bet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-as-australias-blackbird-makes-record-bet\/","title":{"rendered":"AI startup Baseten hits $13 billion valuation as Australia&#8217;s Blackbird makes record bet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-australias-blackbird-makes-record-2026-06-23\/\">AI startup Baseten hits $13 billion valuation as Australia&#8217;s Blackbird makes record bet<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-australias-blackbird-makes-record-2026-06-23\/\">https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-australias-blackbird-makes-record-2026-06-23\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-22 22:06:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.reuters.com\">www.reuters.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Baseten, a California-based AI startup co-founded by Australians, secured $1.5 billion in a funding round that values the company at $13 billion.<\/li>\n<li>The funding round was primarily led by U.S.-based investors Sands Capital and Wellington Management, with Blackbird VC, a top Australian venture capital firm, making its largest-ever investment.<\/li>\n<li>Baseten provides customizable AI models at a cheaper cost compared to established providers like OpenAI and Anthropic.<\/li>\n<li>The company reported a 20-fold increase in revenue over the past year due to rising demand for AI inference in real-world applications.<\/li>\n<li>This round represents Baseten\u2019s fourth capital raising in 18 months, indicating strong investor interest in AI infrastructure providers.<\/li>\n<li>Baseten plans to use the new funds to expand its computing capacity, software offerings, and hire additional personnel.<\/li>\n<li>Blackbird partner Michael Tolo highlighted that Baseten is offering a significant price-value shift in the AI market and described the firm&#8217;s latest investment as potentially the largest by an Australian venture capital firm to date.<\/li>\n<li>The funds underscore a broader trend of substantial capital flows into AI firms as the demand for advanced AI technologies continues to grow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI startup Baseten hits $13 billion valuation as Australia&#8217;s Blackbird makes record bet https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/ai-startup-baseten-hits-13-billion-valuation-australias-blackbird-makes-record-2026-06-23\/ Publish&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/resizer\/v2\/VMJEGOMV7NLSNIRW62OBKD7D3U.jpg?auth=4a4026a70c070422c876f1ed99b654e79f9912a5361391ac1a250c296d21649f&height=1005&width=1920&quality=80&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235417,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235415\/revisions\/235417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}