Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has reportedly raised $30 million in funding for his artificial intelligence startup.
Agrawal was the first Indian-origin CEO of Twitter – now X but was ousted from his position following Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover in 2022.
Who is Parag Agrawal?
Born in Rajasthan, India, Agrawal immigrated to the US to complete his PhD in computer science at Stanford University.
After joining Twitter as a software engineer in 2011, Agrawal worked his way up to the position of Chief Technology Officer for just under a year, replacing Jack Dorsey.
Agrawl’s promotion to CEO was well-received and considered a safe choice for investors.
However, after months of back and forth, Musk closed a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter and disagreed with Agrawal’s new role.
After reports of the two butting heads over the management and direction of Twitter, Musk fired Agrawal.
It was thought Agrawal would have made $42 million following his exit.
Musk also fired former CFO Ned Segal and ex-chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde.
Agrawal’s AI Startup
According to The Information’s sources, Agrawal has been working on an undisclosed AI startup that creates software for large language models (LLM) developers.
The funding round was led by venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, with Index Ventures and First Round Capital also playing a role.
The startup remains tight-lipped about its name and specific product offerings but is known to be focusing on software to aid LLM developers and their clientele.
The surge in popularity of LLMs, exemplified by platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has driven interest in Agrawal’s startup.
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