“模型”对抗微软销售第三方模型 中国会否有同样剧情？

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作者：Jon Victor和Amir Efrati

Information 2023年8月22日报道，Salesforce正在领导一轮融资，参与的是Hugging Face，这是一家帮助企业使用人工智能的最有价值的创业公司之一，估值超过40亿美元，据两位知情人士透露。这轮约2亿美元的融资使这家位于纽约的公司的股价和私人估值翻了一倍以上，其中一位知情人士说。

Salesforce为Hugging Face支付了高昂的价格，后者运营着一个服务，帮助企业存储和使用AI软件，类似于GitHub让开发人员存储软件代码。新的融资将这家初创公司的估值定在其年化收入的100多倍，这是衡量公司以其当前速度在未来12个月内将产生多少收入的一种方法，其中一位知情人士表示。

要点：

· Salesforce争分夺秒地进行AI领域的布局，而竞争对手微软则在AI领域迅速发展。

· 交易价格将Hugging Face的估值定在其年化收入的100多倍。

· Hugging Face托管了Meta's Llama 2等流行的机器学习模型。

这笔交易的价格反映了投资者对当前AI热潮中理解和生成对话文本的公司的热情，这一趋势由OpenAI引发。许多公司，从AI模型开发商如Anthropic和Inflection AI，到开发AI应用程序的开发商如Character.AI和Runway，都在估值达到10亿美元或更高的水平上筹集了资金，尽管它们的收入很少。

就Hugging Face而言，据其中一位知情人士透露，它的年收入有望超过3000万美元。亚马逊网络服务(AWS)、微软、IBM和其他公司向Hugging Face支付费用，引导其用户使用它们各自的云计算服务。成立于2016年的Hugging Face还向开发人员收取企业版的机器学习模型存储库的费用。该初创公司拥有200多名员工，声称有超过1万家公司使用其免费或付费的存储库。它托管了至少数十万个AI模型，包括流行的开源大型语言模型，如Meta Platforms的Llama 2。 Sequoia Capital、Lux Capital和Coatue Management在去年的一次融资中将该公司的估值定在约20亿美元左右。

Salesforce的投资表明它可能将Hugging Face视为未来的潜在收购目标。尽管Salesforce以销售专业人员使用的软件和Slack聊天应用程序为人们所熟知，但它也销售一系列为软件开发人员提供的服务。

最近几个月，Salesforce一直在努力资助AI创业公司，并将新的AI功能纳入其自己的软件产品中，以对抗关键竞争对手微软。微软的GitHub部门销售AI编码助手；其Azure云部门销售AI模型；该公司在Office 365应用程序中推出了可概括文本或撰写论文和电子邮件的新功能。OpenAI为微软的AI产品和功能提供支持，Salesforce也使用OpenAI软件为生成对话摘要和自动化写作任务等功能提供支持。

目前尚不清楚Salesforce是通过其总资产负债表还是通过其风险投资部门Salesforce Ventures投资Hugging Face。上个月，福布斯报道，Hugging Face正在考虑以40亿美元的估值进行新一轮融资。Salesforce和Hugging Face的发言人均未发表评论。（在本文发表后，Salesforce首席执行官马克·贝尼奥夫在Twitter上表示，Salesforce Ventures正在领导这一轮融资。）

Hugging Face托管的开源模型可能会吸引那些不愿将其数据暴露给OpenAI等AI软件提供商的企业。这些企业可以在自己的数据上训练开源模型的自定义版本，而不是购买公司专有模型的访问权。

Salesforce之前已经通过其风险投资部门对多家AI创业公司进行了投资。Salesforce Ventures的生成AI基金已经参与了Anthropic和Cohere的股权投资，它们销售访问其模型的权利，以及You.com，一款AI驱动的搜索引擎。

今年6月，Salesforce宣布推出一系列AI产品，让企业客户可以在Salesforce的云服务器上使用来自Anthropic、OpenAI和其他提供商的模型。与AWS和Google Cloud等竞争对手一样，它们也开始销售来自第三方的模型访问权，以及专门用于训练的服务器。

本文还由Kate Clark撰写。 Jon Victor是The Information的记者，负责报道Alphabet。他的电子邮件是[email protected]，Twitter账号是@jon_victor_。

Salesforce Leads Financing of AI Startup at More Than $4 Billion Valuation

Salesforce is leading a financing round in Hugging Face, one of the most highly valued startups helping businesses use artificial intelligence, at a valuation north of $4 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The roughly $200 million funding round more than doubles the share price and private valuation of the New York–based company, one of these people said.

Salesforce is paying a high price for a piece of Hugging Face, which runs a service that helps companies store and use AI software, similar to the way GitHub lets developers store software code. The new funding valued the startup at more than 100 times its annualized revenue, a measure of how much revenue the company would generate over the next 12 months at its current rate, one of the people said.

THE TAKEAWAY ? Salesforce has scrambled to make AI moves as rival Microsoft zooms ahead? The deal values Hugging Face at more than 100 times annualized revenue? Hugging Face hosts popular machine learning models like Meta’s Llama 2

The deal price reflects the continued investor fervor for companies riding the current boom in AI that understands and generates conversational text, a trend sparked by OpenAI. Numerous companies, from AI model developers like Anthropic and Inflection AI to developers of AI-powered apps such as Character.AI and Runway, have raised funding at valuations of $1 billion or higher, despite generating little revenue. (See our Generative AI Database of startups.)

Hugging Face, for its part, is on pace to generate more than $30 million in revenue annually, one of the people said. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM and others pay Hugging Face for steering its users to their respective cloud computing services. Founded in 2016, Hugging Face also charges developers for an enterprise version of its repository for machine-learning models. The startup, which has more than 200 employees, says more than 10,000 companies use its free or paid repositories. It hosts at least several hundred thousand AI models, including popular open-source large-language models such as Meta Platforms’ Llama 2. Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital and Coatue Management last valued the company at around $2 billion in a financing last year.

The funding by Salesforce suggests it may view Hugging Face as a potential future acquisition. While Salesforce is best known for software used by sales professionals and for the Slack chat app, it also sells an array of services for software developers.

Salesforce in recent months has scrambled to fund AI startups and incorporate new AI features into its own software products as a key rival, Microsoft, zooms ahead. Microsoft’s GitHub unit sells an AI coding assistant; its Azure cloud unit sells AI models; and the company has launched new features in Office 365 apps that can summarize text or write papers and emails. OpenAI powers Microsoft’s AI products and features, and Salesforce also uses OpenAI software to power features that generate summaries of conversations and automate writing tasks.

It isn’t clear whether Salesforce is investing in Hugging Face through its general balance sheet or its venture arm, Salesforce Ventures. Forbes last month reported that Hugging Face was considering a round of new funding at a $4 billion valuation. Spokespeople for Salesforce and Hugging Face did not comment. (After the publication of this article, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on X that Salesforce Ventures was leading the round.)

The open-source models Hugging Face hosts could appeal to businesses reluctant to expose their data to AI software providers such as OpenAI. Instead of buying access to a company’s proprietary model, those businesses could instead train a custom version of open-source models on their own data.

Salesforce has previously made investments in a number of AI startups through its venture capital arm. Salesforce Ventures’ Generative AI Fund has taken stakes in Anthropic and Cohere, which sell access to their models, as well as in You.com, an AI-powered search engine.

In June, Salesforce announced a set of AI products that lets business customers use models from Anthropic, OpenAI and other providers with Salesforce’s cloud servers. Competitors such as AWS and Google Cloud have also begun selling access to models from third parties alongside their own AI software, in addition to specialized servers for training it.

Kate Clark also contributed to this article.

Jon Victor is a reporter at The Information covering Alphabet. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @jon_victor_.

注：文/宇婷编辑，文章来源：B Impact，本文为作者独立观点，不代表亿邦动力立场。

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