The problem
Serving open models in production fast and cheaply is hard and GPU-intensive
What they do
Inference cloud for running, fine-tuning and scaling open and custom AI models
Traction $1B ARR, ~5x YoY
Hiring trend
- Open roles
- 91
- Ops roles
- 6
- Headcount
- ~200
~200 staff, plans to triple by year end; 83 open roles
Hiring in
- San Mateo
- New York
- London
- Remote (Singapore)
- Remote (US)
Funding
- Last round
- $1.505B
- Stage
- Series D
- Date
- Jul 2026
Led by Atreides, Index Ventures, TCV
- Hiring+291 open roles on the live job board (30+ roles = +2)
- Funding recency+2Series D · $1.505B, Jul 2026 (3 months ago): 6 months or less = +1.5, $100M+ round +0.5
- Traction+1.5Strong growth: $1B ARR, ~5x YoY
- Red flags0None found in the last 24 months
- Total5.52 + 2 + 1.5 − 0 = 5.5 → Sprint (4.75 or more)
Distance (Half) is a separate read on how long the lead can last. It doesn't change the score.
Distance
Half · edge: cheaper at size
A top-two independent inference cloud at $1B+ ARR, up ~5x a year; Together and Baseten close behind.
Sources: Fireworks: Series D and $1B ARR (Jul 2026) ↗ · Signals Inbox: Is Fireworks AI worth $17.5B? (Jul 2026) ↗ · New Market Pitch: AI cloud, which startup is ahead? (Jul 2026) ↗
Last checked Oct 25, 2026