Amazon weighs a $7bn deal for Decart

Amazon is in talks to acquire Decart, an AI startup, in a deal valued at around $7bn, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, according to Reuters. No agreement has been announced. Amazon declined to comment outside regular business hours, Reuters said, and Decart did not respond to requests for comment. The Journal said a deal could happen soon if the talks do not fall apart or another suitor emerges, Reuters reported.

Decart has two lines of work in the reports. Reuters described Lucy, a model backed by Nvidia that edits live video in real time, according to the company's website, and Oasis, which generates simulated environments for training and testing robotics and autonomous-driving systems. SiliconANGLE reported that Decart also sells software that optimises AI training and inference workloads for a specific processor, and that the company was given early access last year to Trainium3, the AI chip Amazon Web Services offers. Those descriptions are the company's and the outlets'; we have not tested the products.

The price is a step up. The Journal, citing PitchBook data, said Decart was valued at nearly $4bn in May, Reuters reported. By our arithmetic, $7bn would be a premium of more than 75 per cent to that figure in about five months. Reuters also reported that Decart raised $300m in May in a round led by Radical Ventures, with Nvidia joining as a new investor.

Amazon is not the first company reported to have looked. Bloomberg News reported, as relayed by Reuters, that Anthropic explored a possible $6bn deal for Decart in August and decided last month not to pursue it after due diligence. The reports do not give Anthropic's reasons, SiliconANGLE said it was unclear what led to the decision, and we have not seen a statement from Anthropic. A decision not to proceed after diligence can turn on price, fit or terms, and the reports do not say which applied here.

Much is still open. The reports do not say how a deal would be structured, whether Decart's products would remain available to customers of other clouds, or whether any regulator would review it. The Journal's sourcing is anonymous, and neither Amazon nor Decart has confirmed that talks are taking place.

Large technology companies have been using acquisitions and licensing deals to add AI teams. Komposite reported on Monday that Nvidia is weighing whether to invest more in Reflection AI or buy it, a story that also turned on how a deal might be structured, and on Sunday on a Sequoia-backed chip startup seeking a $2.5bn valuation. Until Amazon or Decart says otherwise, the $7bn figure is the Journal's, not either company's.