Ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal’s AI startup Parallel now valued at $2 billion

Parag Agrawal, who was removed as Twitter’s CEO after Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the company, has built an artificial intelligence startup now valued at approximately $2 billion. Agrawal founded Parallel Web Systems in 2023, focusing on infrastructure for AI applications and large-scale computing systems.

An IIT Bombay graduate who secured All India Rank 77 in the Joint Entrance Examination, Agrawal completed a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering before pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University. During his doctoral years, he worked as a research intern at Microsoft, Yahoo and AT&T Labs.

Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a distinguished software engineer, when the company had fewer than 1,000 employees. He became Chief Technology Officer in 2017 and was appointed CEO in November 2021, making him one of the youngest CEOs in the global technology industry at the time. Roughly a year into his tenure, Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter and replaced the company’s top leadership, including Agrawal.

Rather than take another executive role, Agrawal chose to build a company from scratch. Parallel Web Systems has attracted significant investor interest within two years of its founding, according to publicly reported funding information, placing it among Silicon Valley’s fast-growing AI startups focused on infrastructure for next-generation AI systems.