Fal raises $1.3 billion Series F at $16 billion valuation

Fal has raised $1.3 billion in a Series F led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Nvidia, Sound Ventures, HOF Capital and T. Rowe Price participating. The San Francisco-based company announced the round alongside a previously closed $350 million Series E led by Sequoia Capital in April. Together, the two rounds total $1.65 billion.

The Series F values Fal at $16 billion, double its $8 billion valuation in April, according to Bloomberg. That is about 20 times the $800 million in annualized revenue Fal surpassed earlier this year, also according to Bloomberg. Fal hosts and runs AI video, image and audio models for businesses in entertainment, advertising, e-commerce, gaming and marketing.

Inference demand

The round comes amid soaring demand for inference, the process of running a trained AI model to generate outputs, particularly from customers relying on open source models, TechCrunch reported. Rivals including Baseten, Fireworks AI and Modal are also growing rapidly and raising large funding rounds at higher valuations. Their gross margins remain thin because buying or leasing compute is expensive, according to people familiar with inference companies' financials cited by TechCrunch.

Fal was founded in 2021 by Burkay Gür and Görkem Yurtseven. Gür was a former machine learning leader at Coinbase and an engineer at Oracle; Yurtseven was previously a developer at Amazon, TechCrunch reported. During 2026, Fal has focused on improving the quality and speed of generative media models through post-training techniques. It has also continued developing its own models alongside those provided by partners, and its platform lets companies integrate generative AI into existing production and creative workflows.

As generative media becomes more widely adopted, companies need computing infrastructure that can support content generation while maintaining model performance and efficiency, according to tech.eu. Fal develops infrastructure for generative media, allowing businesses to run image, video and audio models at scale.

Use of funds

Fal said the new money will expand its inference infrastructure and team and support further development of its generative media technology. The company plans to invest in research and explore new approaches to AI-powered content creation through 2027.

The funding gives Fal capital to add compute and staff as inference demand rises. Its gross margins, like those of its rivals, depend on the cost of buying or leasing compute, a constraint TechCrunch reported across inference providers. Rivals are also raising large rounds at higher valuations, so Fal faces pressure to keep spending. The company said the round will support that work.