TLDR
- Hark raised more than $700 million in a Series A at a $6 billion valuation.
- Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm and Salesforce investment arms joined the round.
- Elon Musk said Grok Bot’s running costs are “unsustainably high relative to revenue.”
- Hark founder Brett Adcock told frustrated Grok users to try Hark on Nov. 2.
- Grok Bot reached 800,000 paid weekly users earlier in October.
Hark, a consumer AI startup, has drawn backing from major chip companies. Nvidia and AMD Ventures joined a $700 million round that values the company at $6 billion.
Hark announced in May that it raised more than $700 million in a Series A. The round used a $6 billion post-money valuation. Parkway Venture Capital led the round.
Other investors included Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, ARK Invest and Salesforce Ventures. The group includes several large chip makers.
What Hark Is Building
Hark is not building just another chatbot. It is developing its own foundation models, software and AI-native hardware. The goal is a personal assistant that can work across the services people already use.
The company says its assistant can manage email and create scheduled tasks. It can also order food and use its own computer. Hark also wants it to book flights, handle calendars and summarize Slack conversations.
Hark’s founder is Brett Adcock, who is also the CEO of Figure AI. On Nov. 2, he urged users frustrated by Grok Bot’s usage limits to try Hark. He described Hark’s subscription tiers as “incredibly generous.”
Hark’s pricing page offers its full feature set for free. Pro² gives twice the usage for $20 a month. Pro³ gives 10 times the usage for $100.
Those multipliers are measured against Hark’s free tier. They cannot be compared directly with Grok’s allowances, which have not been disclosed.
Grok Bot’s Cost Problem
Grok Bot comes from SpaceXSI, a unit of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. It launched in August. The agent can carry out multi-step tasks through its own virtual computer.
On SpaceX’s third-quarter earnings call, management said Grok Bot reached 800,000 paid weekly users earlier in October. That number more than doubled over the previous month. Executives said business customers used it in sales, marketing, IT and engineering.
An X user then asked Elon Musk whether the weekly allowance could be reset. The user said many people had used up their allowance much sooner than expected. Musk replied that the cost of running the product was “unsustainably high relative to revenue.”
Musk did not share the product’s costs, revenue or usage limits. He also did not outline any change to pricing.
AI agents often use more computing power than a short chatbot reply. An agent may make repeated model calls and browse the web before it returns a result. Heavier use can raise costs faster than subscription revenue.
The next step for SpaceXSI is to set prices for agent usage that keep customers while covering costs. Hark must also turn its generous usage offer into lasting customer growth. As of Nov. 2, Adcock’s call for Grok users to switch to Hark is the latest public move between the two products.
