What is Baseten?
Baseten helps teams deploy, scale, and optimize open-source and custom AI models.
- Category
- AI inference platform
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA
- Founded
- 2019
- Employees
- Not publicly disclosed
- Total funding
- Reported $1.5B round in finalization; prior disclosed funding smaller
- Valuation
- Reported $11B-$13B in 2026 financing discussions
What is Baseten?
Baseten is a ai inference platform headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Baseten helps teams deploy, scale, and optimize open-source and custom AI models.
Baseten operates in ai inference platform and is best understood by its product surface: Truss, Model APIs, Dedicated deployments, Inference optimization, Multi-cloud model serving. Customers include AI-native application companies and enterprises running open/custom models at scale. Revenue is not disclosed; WSJ reported customers such as Cursor, Mercor, and OpenEvidence.
The company was founded in 2019, is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and has not publicly disclosed employees according to public reporting or company-visible signals. Its market position is shaped by the acceleration of AI infrastructure and application spend, but most private-company financials remain reported estimates rather than audited disclosures.
For buyers and sellers, Baseten is a useful account because the company sits close to production AI budgets. The relevant buying centers are usually engineering, research, infrastructure, product, security, and enterprise operations rather than a single generic AI owner.
What does Baseten offer?
Baseten's public product surface includes Truss, Model APIs, Dedicated deployments, Inference optimization and related enterprise capabilities.
- Truss· Product / capability
- Model APIs· Product / capability
- Dedicated deployments· Product / capability
- Inference optimization· Product / capability
- Multi-cloud model serving· Product / capability
How does Baseten make money?
Baseten monetizes through a mix of self-service usage, subscriptions, infrastructure capacity, licensing, and enterprise contracts depending on the product line.
Baseten sells usage-based inference and dedicated infrastructure; enterprise deployments are contract-priced.
Growth is driven by production AI usage: more prompts, model calls, GPU hours, private deployments, seats, storage, or managed workflows depending on the product. Where exact pricing is not published, the profile treats enterprise terms as contract-priced rather than inventing seat prices.
The buyer motion is therefore both developer-led and enterprise-led. Individual builders may start with a free tier, open-source project, or usage-based API, while larger accounts typically involve procurement, security review, data-governance review, and committed capacity or platform agreements.
Who leads Baseten?
Baseten's publicly visible leadership includes Tuhin Srivastava, Philipp Kandal, Amogh Balakrishnan.
- Tuhin SrivastavaCo-founder & CEOPublic role as of June 2026Leads company and product strategy.
- Philipp KandalCo-founderPublic role as of June 2026Co-founder and technical/product leader.
- Amogh BalakrishnanCo-founderPublic role as of June 2026Co-founder and technical/product leader.
How do you contact Baseten's leadership?
No verified public executive email pattern was confirmed for Baseten; use the company's official contact, sales, support, or press paths rather than guessed personal emails.
No verified public executive email format; use official contact channels.How much funding has Baseten raised?
Baseten has reported $1.5b round in finalization; prior disclosed funding smaller, with valuation/status currently described as Reported $11B-$13B in 2026 financing discussions.
Baseten's disclosed funding history is: 2019-2021: Seed / early rounds — Early venture backing for ML app infrastructure. 2022: Series A — $20M led by Greylock. 2024: Series B/C — Reported growth rounds supporting inference infrastructure. Jun 2026: Large round in finalization — WSJ reported a planned $1.5B raise at $11B-$13B valuation.
Because several AI companies use strategic partnerships, cloud credits, debt, project finance, or reported-but-not-yet-filed private rounds, this profile separates disclosed funding from directional reports. The valuation field is reported as Reported $11B-$13B in 2026 financing discussions; it should be rechecked before financial decisions.
The seller signal is budget maturity. Companies with late-stage or infrastructure-scale financing usually have formal procurement and security processes, while earlier labs and open-source companies may centralize decisions with founders and technical platform leaders.
How did Baseten get here?
Baseten's timeline runs from its 2019 founding to its current ai inference platform position.
- 2019FoundedBaseten starts as ML application infrastructure.
- 2021Product launchThe company expands no-code/low-code ML app tooling.
- 2023Inference focusBaseten moves deeper into model deployment.
- 2024Truss and enterprise servingThe company packages open-model deployment workflows.
- 2025AI-native customersBaseten becomes a production inference vendor for AI apps.
- 2026Mega-round reportWSJ reports a very large financing in progress.
Who are Baseten's competitors?
Baseten competes with Fireworks AI, Together AI, Replicate, Modal, CoreWeave depending on the buyer's use case.
- Fireworks AIFireworks AI overlaps with Baseten for buyers evaluating ai inference platform alternatives, but differs by product depth, deployment model, geography, or ecosystem.
- Together AITogether AI overlaps with Baseten for buyers evaluating ai inference platform alternatives, but differs by product depth, deployment model, geography, or ecosystem.
- ReplicateReplicate overlaps with Baseten for buyers evaluating ai inference platform alternatives, but differs by product depth, deployment model, geography, or ecosystem.
- ModalModal overlaps with Baseten for buyers evaluating ai inference platform alternatives, but differs by product depth, deployment model, geography, or ecosystem.
- CoreWeaveCoreWeave overlaps with Baseten for buyers evaluating ai inference platform alternatives, but differs by product depth, deployment model, geography, or ecosystem.
Baseten — frequently asked questions
