Hugging Face Raises $40 Million for NLP Library
Hugging Face Secures $40 Million in Series B Funding
Hugging Face has successfully completed a $40 million Series B funding round, with Addition leading the investment. The company is dedicated to the development of an open-source library focused on natural language processing (NLP) technologies.
Transformers Library Gains Traction
The Transformers library, available on GitHub, has garnered significant attention within the developer community. It currently boasts over 42,000 stars and 10,000 forks, demonstrating its widespread adoption.
Investor Participation
In addition to Addition, existing investors such as Lux Capital, A.Capital, and Betaworks contributed to this funding round. Notable individual investors also participated, including Dev Ittycheria, Olivier Pomel, Alex Wang, Aghi Marietti, Florian Douetteau, Richard Socher, Paul St. John, Kevin Durant, and Rich Kleiman.
Leveraging Powerful NLP Models
The Transformers library allows users to utilize pre-trained NLP models like BERT, GPT, XLNet, T5, and DistilBERT. These models facilitate a variety of text manipulation tasks.
Applications of the Technology
These tasks include text classification, information extraction, automated question answering, text summarization, and text generation. The versatility of the platform opens doors to numerous applications.
Real-World Use Cases
NLP is finding practical applications across various industries. For example, Monzo, a challenger bank, employs Hugging Face technology to power its customer support chatbot.
Currently, approximately 5,000 companies are integrating Hugging Face into their operations, including major players like Microsoft, which utilizes it within its Bing search engine.
Expanding Business Model
Hugging Face has recently introduced new services, offering prioritized support, private model management, and hosted inference APIs. Bloomberg and Typeform are among the clients utilizing these services.
Future Growth Plans
The newly acquired funding will be used to significantly expand the company’s workforce. Hugging Face intends to triple its team size in both New York and Paris, with remote positions also being offered.
Financial Performance and Valuation
The company achieved cash-flow positivity in January and February of 2021. Remarkably, 90% of the funds from a $15 million round raised just over a year ago remain available.
Furthermore, Hugging Face’s valuation has increased fivefold, a testament to its strong position and ability to secure favorable investment terms.
A Thriving Community
Hugging Face is fostering a vibrant community of NLP developers. The platform provides access to models and datasets, encouraging collaboration and contribution, and solidifying its role as a central hub for enthusiasts.
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