Amazon reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Decart at a $5.5 billion valuation

Amazon is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart at a valuation of about $5.5 billion, Calcalist reported on October 13. The publication said an agreement could be signed by the end of the month, though neither company has announced a transaction. Decart builds software to make AI workloads run more efficiently across different chips, as well as models that create or edit video and simulated worlds in real time.

The core asset for Amazon is the Decart Optimization Stack, or DOS. Decart says the software helps hardware providers and AI teams run training and inference faster and at higher utilization across Nvidia processors, Amazon Trainium and Google TPUs. Calcalist said Decart has worked closely with Amazon almost since its founding and demonstrated its technology with an Amazon chip at an annual Amazon event.

The company also has two visible model products. Lucy transforms live video as it plays; Decart says deployments include virtual try-on, live advertising, social platforms and gaming. Oasis generates interactive environments that respond in real time and is designed for robotics, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing and drones. Both run on DOS, according to Decart.

The reported talks follow two failed routes to a sale. Calcalist said Anthropic withdrew after completing due diligence, then Nvidia declined Decart’s attempt to reopen earlier negotiations. The report’s approximately $5.5 billion valuation is below the roughly $7 billion figure that Calcalist says The Wall Street Journal previously reported. Decart did not respond to Calcalist, and the Amazon transaction remains unsigned.

Calcalist said Decart raised $300 million in May at a $4 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to $450 million. The reported Amazon valuation is about 38% above that mark. Yet the publication said the three-year-old company’s revenue still comes mainly from projects and that it has not settled on a final product or business model. It described Amazon’s interest as focused on Decart’s chip-performance technology and fewer than 100 employees.