對抗微軟銷售第三方模型 中國會否有同樣劇情？

作者：Jon Victor和Amir Efrati

Information 2023年8月22日報道，Salesforce正在領導一輪融資，參與的是Hugging Face，這是一家幫助企業使用人工智能的最有價值的創業公司之一，估值超過40億美元，據兩位知情人士透露。這輪約2億美元的融資使這家位於紐約的公司的股價和私人估值翻了一倍以上，其中一位知情人士説。

Salesforce為Hugging Face支付了高昂的價格，后者運營着一個服務，幫助企業存儲和使用AI軟件，類似於GitHub讓開發人員存儲軟件代碼。新的融資將這家初創公司的估值定在其年化收入的100多倍，這是衡量公司以其當前速度在未來12個月內將產生多少收入的一種方法，其中一位知情人士表示。

要點：

· Salesforce爭分奪秒地進行AI領域的佈局，而競爭對手微軟則在AI領域迅速發展。

· 交易價格將Hugging Face的估值定在其年化收入的100多倍。

· Hugging Face託管了Meta's Llama 2等流行的機器學習模型。

這筆交易的價格反映了投資者對當前AI熱潮中理解和生成對話文本的公司的熱情，這一趨勢由OpenAI引發。許多公司，從AI模型開發商如Anthropic和Inflection AI，到開發AI應用程序的開發商如Character.AI和Runway，都在估值達到10億美元或更高的水平上籌集了資金，儘管它們的收入很少。

就Hugging Face而言，據其中一位知情人士透露，它的年收入有望超過3000萬美元。亞馬遜網絡服務(AWS)、微軟、IBM和其他公司向Hugging Face支付費用，引導其用户使用它們各自的雲計算服務。成立於2016年的Hugging Face還向開發人員收取企業版的機器學習模型存儲庫的費用。該初創公司擁有200多名員工，聲稱有超過1萬家公司使用其免費或付費的存儲庫。它託管了至少數十萬個AI模型，包括流行的開源大型語言模型，如Meta Platforms的Llama 2。 Sequoia Capital、Lux Capital和Coatue Management在去年的一次融資中將該公司的估值定在約20億美元左右。

Salesforce的投資表明它可能將Hugging Face視為未來的潛在收購目標。儘管Salesforce以銷售專業人員使用的軟件和Slack聊天應用程序為人們所熟知，但它也銷售一系列為軟件開發人員提供的服務。

最近幾個月，Salesforce一直在努力資助AI創業公司，並將新的AI功能納入其自己的軟件產品中，以對抗關鍵競爭對手微軟。微軟的GitHub部門銷售AI編碼助手；其Azure雲部門銷售AI模型；該公司在Office 365應用程序中推出了可概括文本或撰寫論文和電子郵件的新功能。OpenAI為微軟的AI產品和功能提供支持，Salesforce也使用OpenAI軟件為生成對話摘要和自動化寫作任務等功能提供支持。

目前尚不清楚Salesforce是通過其總資產負債表還是通過其風險投資部門Salesforce Ventures投資Hugging Face。上個月，福布斯報道，Hugging Face正在考慮以40億美元的估值進行新一輪融資。Salesforce和Hugging Face的發言人均未發表評論。（在本文發表后，Salesforce首席執行官馬克·貝尼奧夫在Twitter上表示，Salesforce Ventures正在領導這一輪融資。）

Hugging Face託管的開源模型可能會吸引那些不願將其數據暴露給OpenAI等AI軟件提供商的企業。這些企業可以在自己的數據上訓練開源模型的自定義版本，而不是購買公司專有模型的訪問權。

Salesforce之前已經通過其風險投資部門對多家AI創業公司進行了投資。Salesforce Ventures的生成AI基金已經參與了Anthropic和Cohere的股權投資，它們銷售訪問其模型的權利，以及You.com，一款AI驅動的搜索引擎。

今年6月，Salesforce宣佈推出一系列AI產品，讓企業客户可以在Salesforce的雲服務器上使用來自Anthropic、OpenAI和其他提供商的模型。與AWS和Google Cloud等競爭對手一樣，它們也開始銷售來自第三方的模型訪問權，以及專門用於訓練的服務器。

本文還由Kate Clark撰寫。 Jon Victor是The Information的記者，負責報道Alphabet。他的電子郵件是jon.victor@theinformation.com，Twitter賬號是@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 jon.victor@theinformation.com or on Twitter at @jon_victor_.

注：文/宇婷編輯，文章來源：B Impact，本文為作者獨立觀點，不代表億邦動力立場。