[FINANCIAL] AI Data Infrastructure ·
Storage / AI OS · Growth Equity + Secondary —
Closed March 13, 2026
Vast Data Raises $1B Series F at $30B
Valuation — Becoming Israel's Most Valuable Private Tech Company
The Israeli-founded, New York-based AI data infrastructure
company closes a landmark funding round that is simultaneously a primary raise
and one of the largest liquidity events in Israeli tech history — with more
than $500M of the $1B going to early investors and employees selling existing
shares at prices that imply extraordinary multiples on 2019-era seed
investments.
DEAL SNAPSHOT
|
TOTAL ROUND SIZE $1.0 Billion |
HEADLINE VALUATION $30 Billion |
|
PRIMARY (NEW CAPITAL TO COMPANY) ~$400-500M |
EFFECTIVE SECONDARY PRICE ~$25-27B (15% discount
vs. headline) |
|
SECONDARY (EARLY INVESTOR/EMPLOYEE
LIQUIDITY) >$500M |
PRIOR VALUATION (SERIES E, DEC
2023) $9.1 Billion (3.3x
increase) |
THE PARTIES
|
ACQUIRER / LEAD INVESTOR Undisclosed institutional
investors (Series F) The investor
list for the Series F primary has not been publicly disclosed. Existing
investors include NVIDIA, Tiger Global Management, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity
Management & Research, NEA, BOND Capital, Drive Capital, 83North, and
Greenfield Partners. Goldman Sachs and Fidelity are known Series E
participants likely to have continued. No lead investor was publicly named
for the Series F. |
COMPANY Vast Data Inc. New
York-headquartered (Israeli-founded) AI data infrastructure company.
Co-founders: CEO Renen Hallak, Jeff Denworth (co-founder), CTO Alon Horev,
Chief R&D Officer Shachar Fienblit. ~1,100 employees. Product: "AI
OS" — a software platform unifying storage, database, and compute to
feed GPU clusters with data at the speed AI systems require. ARR estimated at
~$2B by end-2025 (up from $200M in 2023). CoreWeave deal alone: $1.17B. Key
clients: CoreWeave, xAI (Elon Musk), Lambda Labs. |
DEAL OVERVIEW & THE SECONDARY STRUCTURE
Vast Data
confirmed on March 13, 2026 that it had closed its Series F round at a $30
billion valuation. However, as Israeli media outlet Globes first reported
(February 5, 2026), the round has an unusually high secondary component: for
every one new share issued as part of the round, approximately 5-6 existing
shares were sold by early investors, founders, and long-tenured employees. This
means more than $500 million of the $1B went directly to insiders rather than
into Vast's corporate treasury.
The effective
transaction price for secondary shares was approximately $25/share — implying a
valuation of $25-27B rather than the headline $30B. This structure is common
among late-stage private tech companies seeking to provide liquidity for early
investors without a full IPO process. For investors like 83North and Greenfield
Partners — who entered Vast at valuations in the tens of millions in 2019 — the
secondary represents an implied investment multiple of several hundred times.
"Without Vast's technology, even the fastest AI processors can
face severe data bottlenecks. Vast's software ensures rapid access to massive
datasets — making it one of the most critical layers in any AI infrastructure
stack."
— Jensen Huang,
Founder & CEO, NVIDIA (personal video, VAST Forward conference, Feb 2026)
THE BUSINESS: AI OS FOR GPU CLUSTERS
Vast's core
insight, formulated in 2016, was that GPU-based AI systems would create a
fundamentally different data access problem: training a large AI model requires
ingesting petabytes of data at very high throughput rates with low latency — a
pattern that traditional enterprise storage (built for sequential access) could
not handle efficiently. Vast's Disaggregated Shared Everything (DASE)
architecture separates compute from storage, enabling parallelized, GPU-native
data access at scale.
Revenues have
been tripling annually: from $200M ARR in 2023 to an estimated $2B ARR by
end-2025. The CoreWeave deal ($1.17B) alone represents more than half a year of
2023-era revenue. The company is profitable and was already sitting on
approximately $1B in cash before the Series F. The round's primary purpose is
therefore not operational funding but pre-IPO balance sheet optimization and
insider liquidity management ahead of a likely public offering.
ADVISORS
No financial
advisors or placement agents were disclosed for the Vast Data Series F. The
secondary tender component was managed through an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle)
structure, consistent with standard practice for large-scale secondary
liquidity events.