Artificial intelligence infrastructure startup Chalk announced today it has raised a $50 million Series A funding round, valuing the company at an impressive figure as it aims to revolutionize real-time AI processing[1][2].
Funding Details
The San Francisco-based startup's funding round was led by Felicis, marking a significant milestone in Chalk's growth trajectory[1]. This substantial investment comes just months after the company secured $10 million in seed funding in December 2023, which was led by General Catalyst, Unusual Ventures, and Xfund[5].
Company Background
Chalk has positioned itself as a direct competitor to
Databricks, offering a specialized data platform for machine learning and AI applications[2][3]. The company was founded by Andrew Moreland and Elliot Marx, who met at Stanford University and have been working together since then[4].
Technology and Value Proposition
Chalk's platform provides critical building blocks for real-time machine learning, including a compute engine, an LLM toolchain, a feature store, integrated monitoring, and branches for data science experimentation[4][5]. Unlike incumbent technologies such as Apache Spark and Databricks Runtime, which were designed for large, long-running jobs, Chalk enables developers to dynamically fetch data from APIs, microservices, and transactional databases for real-time decision making[4].
Industry Recognition
Earlier in 2024, CB Insights named Chalk to their eighth-annual list of the world's 100 most promising AI companies, recognizing them alongside Databricks[3]. This accolade further validates the company's innovative approach to AI infrastructure.
Customer Adoption
Chalk has already gained trust from several notable companies including Melio, Mission Lane, Pipe, Ramp, Vital, and Whatnot, which use the platform to support their most critical decisions in areas such as risk assessment, recommendations, and healthcare[4][5].
Future Plans
The company plans to use this new funding to accelerate the development of its platform, reach new customers, and grow its engineering and go-to-market teams as it continues to advance its mission of empowering developers to deploy production-grade AI[5].
