Hugging Face, the platform often described as the GitHub of artificial intelligence, is reportedly exploring a sale that could value the company at more than $13B. If the deal materializes, it would represent a staggering leap from the $4.5B valuation the company carried after its last funding round just three years ago.
From $4.5B to $13B in three years
Hugging Face’s most recent confirmed fundraise was a $235 million Series D round in August 2023. That round valued the company at $4.5B post-money and attracted an investor roster that read like a who’s who of Big Tech: Salesforce Ventures, Google, Amazon, and Nvidia all participated.
The company, founded in 2016 and led by CEO Clément Delangue, has built itself into the central hub for open-source AI development.
A company that likes saying no
What makes this exploration particularly interesting is Hugging Face’s track record of turning down money. The company previously rejected an investment offer from Nvidia worth $500 million that would have valued the firm at $7B. The reason? Independence.
Delangue has publicly expressed a preference for an IPO over a sale, positioning the company as one that values long-term autonomy over quick exits.
Aggressive expansion beyond software
The most notable move came in April 2025, when Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics, a humanoid robotics startup. Before Pollen Robotics, the company had already scooped up Gradio, the popular tool for building machine learning demos, along with XetHub and Argilla. Each acquisition plugged a gap in the workflow that AI developers follow from training to deployment. Gradio made it easy to showcase models. XetHub brought better version control for large datasets. Argilla added data labeling and curation tools.