AI startup Hugging Face exploring sale valuing it at $13 billion

AI startup Hugging Face has ​been exploring a ​sale that could value the company ​at $13 billion or more, Business Insider reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The New ‌York-based ⁠company, which ⁠hosts open-source large language models and datasets, has been working with a bank to gauge bidders' interest, the report said.

Here are some more details:


Hugging Face did not immediately respond ​to a Reuters request for ⁠comment outside ‌regular business hours.

Hugging ​Face ​was valued at $4.5 billion in 2023 ⁠in a funding round led by ​technology heavyweights including Salesforce, Alphabet's Google, ​and Nvidia.

Hugging Face was hit by a security incident last month when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised Hugging ‌Face infrastructure.

OpenAI was testing the capabilities of some of its ​most advanced ​models in ⁠a controlled environment when an agent escaped containment, reached the internet and broke into Hugging ​Face to fulfill its testing goal. The incident was widely seen as a sign of AI's expanding capabilities fueling long-feared security threats.