Hark raises $700M at $6B

Brett Adcock’s startup Hark said on Thursday it raised more than $700 million in a Series A round that valued the company at $6 billion post-money. The San Jose, California-based company said the round was oversubscribed and was led by Parkway Venture Capital. Investors included Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Brookfield, ARK Invest, Greycroft, Prime Movers Lab, Align Ventures and Tamarack Global. Bloomberg also reported the financing on May 21. ### Who is Hark, and what is it building? Hark described itself as an AI lab building “advanced personalized intelligence” and said it is developing multimodal AI systems and native hardware devices. The company said its products are meant to serve as a universal interface between humans and machines, using speech, vision and memory. After building the systems, Hark said it plans to introduce AI-native hardware designed specifically for them. (bloomberg.com) TechCrunch reported on May 21 that Hark is building models and hardware for an AI personal assistant and called the company’s product vision a “universal” AI interface. Business Insider said Hark is aiming to compete with companies including OpenAI, Apple, Google and Meta in AI hardware. ### Why does Brett Adcock matter here? (finance.yahoo.com) Brett Adcock founded Hark and is also known as the founder and chief executive of humanoid robotics startup Figure AI. Business Insider described Hark as Adcock’s “next big bet,” while Bloomberg called it his new startup. Observer reported in March that Adcock was self-funding Hark before the new round and said the company aimed to combine multimodal AI with custom hardware. (techcrunch.com) Observer reported that Hark’s strategy is to own the full stack — foundation models, software systems, hardware and user interfaces — under one roof. That approach places the company in a capital-intensive part of the AI market, where startups are spending heavily on chips, talent and device development. ### Who wrote the checks? Parkway Venture Capital led the Series A, according to Hark’s announcement. (businessinsider.com) The investor list included strategic and financial backers spanning semiconductors, enterprise software and infrastructure, including Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. Bloomberg reported that the round valued Hark at $6 billion including the money raised. (observer.com) Hark said Qatalyst Partners provided strategic and financial advice on the transaction. ### Why is this round drawing attention? The $700 million size stands out because it is a Series A round for a company that is still early in product rollout. (finance.yahoo.com) TechCrunch said the financing raises the question of how much capital it now takes to try to launch a must-have AI consumer product. Business Insider said the deal underscores investor willingness to back AI hardware efforts despite the cost and execution risk associated with building both models and devices. (bloomberg.com) That is an inference drawn from the size of the round, the stage of the company and the mix of investors in chips and software. The company’s own statement tied the financing to “a generational leap in computing,” according to coverage that reproduced the announcement. Hark said the money will help accelerate development of its integrated models, software and hardware. ### What happens next? Hark said the new funding will be used to build its AI systems first and then launch hardware devices designed around them. The company has not yet disclosed a product launch date, pricing or commercial availability. (techcrunch.com) For now, the next public markers are likely to come from Hark’s own announcements, investor disclosures or future product reveals tied to Brett Adcock and the backers named in the May 21 financing. (finance.yahoo.com) (digg.com)