Feb 20 (Reuters) - Nvidia ( NVDA )-backed Together AI

said on Thursday it has raised $305 million in its latest

funding round, which more than doubled the

artificial-intelligence startup's valuation from last year.

The round, led by venture capital firm General Catalyst,

valued the San Francisco, California-based company at $3.3

billion.

Salesforce Ventures, chip giant Nvidia ( NVDA ) and Coatue also

participated in the fundraising, which was co-led by Prosperity7

- the venture capital fund of Aramco Ventures.

The new funding comes as Together AI looks to expand its

cloud platform, with plans for large-scale deployment of Nvidia

Blackwell graphics processing units.

Founded in 2022, Together AI's cloud platform allows

developers and researchers to train and deploy generative AI

models.

Last year, the company had raised $106 million in a

Salesforce Ventures-led funding round at $1.25 billion

valuation. It quickly gained popularity for offering access to

Nvidia's ( NVDA ) sought-after GPUs.

Together AI's platform supports more than 200 open-source

models, including Meta Platforms' Llama and those from China's

DeepSeek.

DeepSeek's launch of its latest low-cost AI models last

month has disrupted the industry and raised doubts over the

United States' lead in the race to dominate the technology.

"Recent developments in open-source AI illustrate the

importance of Together AI's work in making access to models like

these secure, accessible, and powerful for organizations here in

the U.S. and around the world," said Prosperity7 Ventures

Managing Director Abhishek Shukla.

Together AI increased its user base to more than 450,000 AI

developers last year, it said.