Reka has secured $110 million in funding to drive the expansion of its multimodal AI platforms. The investment, led by Snowflake and NVIDIA, underscores growing confidence in the company's technology and its potential to transform how AI interacts with different types of data, including text, images, and audio. With this round of financing, Reka has joined the ranks of unicorn startups, achieving a valuation exceeding $1 billion. The funding comes as interest in AI continues to shift toward application-layer solutions, with companies focusing on how to integrate AI into real-world use cases. Reka's approach, which emphasizes the development of versatile AI models capable of handling multiple data formats, has positioned it as a key player in the evolving AI landscape. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the adoption of its platforms across industries, including healthcare, finance, and enterprise software. Investors see significant potential in Reka's ability to provide scalable, flexible AI tools that can be easily deployed in various business environments. This latest round of funding follows a series of successful product launches and partnerships, further solidifying Reka's role in the next wave of AI innovation. Despite the progress, the company still faces challenges in scaling its technology and ensuring it meets the demands of enterprise clients. However, the backing from major tech firms like Snowflake and NVIDIA suggests that Reka is well on its way to becoming a leading force in the multimodal AI space.

A U.S. AI startup, Reka, has raised $110 million in funding, led by Snowflake and NVIDIA, propelling its valuation to $1 billion and making it a unicorn. The investment highlights the growing interest in efficient, multimodal AI models, as the industry shifts toward specialized applications and infrastructure. Founded in 2022 in Sunnyvale, California, Reka is backed by a team of experts from leading AI labs, including Google, Meta, DeepMind, and Baidu. Its CEO, Dani Yogatama, and chief scientist, Yi Tay, have previously contributed to major AI breakthroughs. Unlike many competitors focusing on larger models, Reka emphasizes efficiency, aiming to reduce computational costs while delivering strong performance. This approach addresses a key challenge for businesses: the high expense of deploying AI. Reka has developed a range of multimodal models capable of processing text, images, video, and audio. Its flagship models include Reka Core for complex tasks, Reka Flash for balanced performance, and Reka Edge for resource-constrained environments. Reka Flash 3.1, with 210 billion parameters, has demonstrated strong performance against models like Qwen3-32B and OpenAI’s o3-mini. These models use a proprietary multimodal transformer architecture, support 32 languages, and handle up to 128,000 tokens. The company also offers enterprise platforms like Reka Vision, which processes video and image data, and Reka Research, an AI agent that answers complex questions by analyzing web and internal documents. Snowflake’s investment in Reka is part of its strategy to transform its data cloud into an intelligent data engine. By integrating Reka’s models, Snowflake customers can analyze unstructured data like images and videos without moving sensitive information out of the cloud. Snowflake’s AI engineering vice president, Vivek Raghunathan, praised Reka’s capabilities, noting that few teams have achieved such a level of expertise. Before this investment, Snowflake had considered acquiring Reka for over $1 billion, but the decision to invest instead shows its confidence in the company’s independent growth. NVIDIA’s involvement in the round underscores its push to strengthen its AI ecosystem. As a leading chipmaker, NVIDIA’s GPUs are essential for training and running large AI models. The company has invested in over 80 AI startups through its NVentures division, including Cohere and Mistral AI. By backing Reka, NVIDIA aims to ensure continued demand for its hardware and stay at the forefront of AI development. Reka’s growth has been rapid, expanding from 20 to 50 employees in the past year. The funding will support further development of its models and platforms, aiming to expand into more enterprise markets. The company’s success shows that independent AI startups can thrive outside of major players like OpenAI and Google, especially when focusing on niche but valuable technologies. With Snowflake and NVIDIA’s support, Reka is well-positioned to play a significant role in the evolving AI landscape.