Probably because their last funding round was in 2023 and they may have been looking for another round because their revenue and cost were probably not really adding up to the valuation needed for another round. Running GPU hardware at scale is just expensive

Given the price was not announced, it seems investors decided to exit via acquisition instead of trying to raise a multi hundred million round consistent with a multi billion dollar valuation and a high level of ambition that investors are shooting for in this space.

If the amount was high, they'd be be bragging about it. Given that they aren't, it might be on the lower end of the 2023 valuation for the then 40M round.

Just speculating here; I don't have any more information. Basing this on my understanding of how this stuff works. This might actually be the opening round for a few more such acquisitions of the somewhat risky investments of a few years ago of companies that are probably not going to turn into trillion $ unicorns. There are lots of pretty well funded startups in this space converting investment capital into cloud GPU cost. I think some level of consolidation is overdue and might take away some building concern about over exposure in the market. Big banks and investors might be getting nervous.

You don’t know how good they were really doing and you don’t know how good the offer was.

From what I know they were the most used inference provider by developers a few years ago, but since the Together AI and Fireworks only grew while Replicate seems to have stayed quiet. It’s a highly competitive low-margin business, so volume is critical and if you’re losing volume then you’re doomed.

Don't pretend that 98% of startups don't actually dream of an exit or payday.