Fireworks raised $1.5bn at a $17.5bn valuation, betting every company will build its own specialized intelligence instead of renting from a big lab.

Fireworks once relied heavily on revenue from coding startup Cursor, but has diversified in the past year as more companies reach for lower-cost AI models.

Fireworks AI reaches a $17.5B valuation as enterprises flock to cheaper AI inference solutions, with revenue more than doubling in six months.