FriendliAI Raises $20M to Tackle High Costs and Slow Speeds of AI Deployment

FriendliAI, a company at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) inference technology, today announced the successful closure of a $20 million seed extension round. The funding, led by Capstone Partners, with participation from Sierra Ventures, Alumni Ventures, KDB, and KB Securities, will fuel the expansion of FriendliAI’s platform, which is designed to make the deployment of large-scale AI models faster and more affordable.

As businesses increasingly move their AI projects from development to real-world applications, they face significant hurdles, including soaring infrastructure costs and slow inference speeds that can hinder user experience. FriendliAI directly confronts these challenges with a platform that has been shown to cut GPU costs by up to 90% while delivering market-leading performance for Large Language Models (LLMs).

"The transition of AI from an experimental technology to a core business tool has created a surge in demand for efficient and scalable inference solutions," said Byung-Gon Chun, CEO and founder of FriendliAI. "This funding is a strong validation of our approach. We are thrilled to partner with our investors to scale our platform and help more companies unlock the full potential of AI without the prohibitive costs."

FriendliAI's technology has already gained significant traction in the industry. The company recently partnered with LG AI Research, becoming the exclusive provider of API access to LG’s advanced EXAONE 4.0 foundation model. Furthermore, leading AI companies are already leveraging the FriendliAI platform for significant gains:

• Scatter Lab, a popular character AI chatbot company in Korea, has drastically reduced its infrastructure costs for its Zeta LLM service.
• Upstage, known for its cutting-edge Solar foundation model, relies on FriendliAI to deliver state-of-the-art inference performance.

Investors have taken note of FriendliAI's technical expertise and market position. "FriendliAI's ability to deliver superior performance while significantly reducing costs makes them an essential partner for any enterprise scaling its AI operations," said Eun-gang Song, Partner at Capstone Partners. Ben Yu, Partner at Sierra Ventures, added, "FriendliAI is providing the critical infrastructure needed to power the next wave of AI adoption."

The new capital will be used to expand FriendliAI’s sales and marketing efforts, scale operations to meet growing customer demand, and continue to innovate on its platform.