Vast Data, the nine-year-old enterprise data storage company quietly powering some of the world’s most demanding AI workloads, is back in the market to raise a fresh round of funding—this time at a proposed valuation of $25 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal.
The move would mark a monumental leap from its $9 billion Series E valuation in December 2023 and signals just how aggressively investor sentiment has shifted in favor of companies building the underpinnings of the AI revolution.
Although the terms of the round are not yet finalized, and insiders say the valuation could change, interest in Vast from venture capitalists has intensified. The startup has emerged as a key enabler of large-scale AI deployment, offering a data infrastructure that handles the growing complexity, volume, and speed demands of modern artificial intelligence applications.
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At the core of Vast’s appeal is its AI-native storage platform, designed to unify all types of data—structured, semi-structured, and unstructured—under one high-speed, flash-based system. Unlike traditional systems that rely on storage tiers—slower, cheaper storage for archival data and high-performance storage for active datasets—Vast’s architecture collapses those silos, allowing immediate access to massive volumes of data. This structure is particularly critical for AI model training and inference, where delays in data retrieval can slow down entire pipelines.
Its platform, paired with hardware from Supermicro, HPE, and Cisco, is already trusted by next-gen AI cloud providers like Coreweave and Lambda, as well as established enterprises such as Pixar, ServiceNow, and Xai, Elon Musk’s AI research company. These clients use Vast not only for storage but also for the performance benefits it brings to AI workloads that require rapid and frequent data access.
Economic Impact of AI Behind Valuation Surge
Vast’s bid for a $25 billion valuation isn’t occurring in a vacuum. It underscores a broader market trend: the economic gravitational pull of AI, which is projected to generate up to $15.7 trillion in global economic value by 2030, according to a report by PwC. Of that, nearly $6.6 trillion is expected to come from increased productivity, with the rest driven by consumption-side effects, including new product and service offerings.
As the AI wave accelerates, so does the demand for the foundational infrastructure—computing, storage, and data management—that enables it. Vast Data sits at the center of that value chain, providing the kind of high-throughput storage systems needed to make large language models (LLMs), generative AI tools, and autonomous systems operate efficiently.
It’s why Vast’s year-over-year revenue has reportedly been growing at 2.5x to 3x, and why it hit $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) when it last raised funds 18 months ago. CEO Renen Hallak said on a podcast in May 2023 that the company has also been free cash flow positive for four consecutive years, further bolstering investor confidence.
From Storage to Full-Stack Data Infrastructure
What sets Vast apart is its strategic ambition to move beyond storage. The company is building a next-generation database architecture that could position it to compete with Databricks, a $43 billion juggernaut in unified data analytics and AI services. This move transforms Vast from a storage provider into a broader data infrastructure company, helping customers not only store data but optimize how it flows into AI models and enterprise systems.
That ambition places it in a different league compared to rivals like Weka, which raised $140 million last year at a $1.6 billion valuation, or even Pure Storage, a publicly traded firm with a market cap of around $17 billion. If Vast secures its new valuation, it will leapfrog both to become one of the most valuable private companies in the enterprise AI space.
To date, Vast has raised $381 million from heavyweight backers such as Fidelity Management & Research Company, NEA, BOND Capital, and Drive Capital. The next round, if closed at the intended figure, would not only rank as one of the largest step-ups in enterprise tech but also validate the thesis that data infrastructure is as valuable as AI models themselves.
The Silent Engine of the AI Boom
As consumer-facing AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic dominate headlines, startups like Vast Data are emerging as the silent engines making the AI economy viable. From managing the flood of training data to delivering high-speed access for real-time inference, these infrastructure players are quietly redefining how value is created in the digital age.
And as the projected $15.7 trillion AI economy begins to take shape over the next five years, it is companies like Vast—those enabling AI to run faster, more reliably, and more affordably—that may define the next era of enterprise technology.