According to the Wall Street Journal, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI startup for Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of Openai, is reportedly talking about raising more than $2 billion.
This suggests that SSI is targeting a $20 billion valuation following previous reports from February. That number now appears to be underestimated. Bloomberg also reported that venture capital firm Green Oaks Capital Partners is planning to lead the transaction and invest $500 million.
“AI researcher Ilya Sutskever is the main reason venture capitalists are putting about $2 billion in safe emergency at a secret company that has left their offices in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sutskever, who left Openai in May 2024, shared the mission of SSI at the time. SSI has not yet generated revenue, but it focuses on building AI systems more than humans.
The company initially raised $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation. This is primarily based on Sutskever’s position as a key figure in the development of Openai. If the latest funding round is over, your SSI rating will be six times higher in just a few months.
SSI Global Expansion and Key Employment
SSI operates in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, expanding its team and leasing new office space. The company recently secured an office in Midtown Tel Aviv, but has not announced who will lead operations there.
One notable employment is Dr. Yair Carmon, a senior lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University. Carmon received his PhD from Stanford University in 2020. This earned a degree from the Israel Institute of Technology.
The first round of funding was supported by Andreessen Horowitz of Sequoia Capital and DST Global, an investment company for billionaire Yuri Milner.
Despite the hype, SSI has not revealed any technology or products. Its public focus was particularly on the recruitment of the Tel Aviv Centre. Sutskever emphasizes SSI’s mission to build AI models that go beyond human intelligence while maintaining consistency with human values.
SSI: A new, completely different direction to advance AI
SSI’s growth strategy is also outstanding. Startups communicate their plans to “spread in peace” to investors, focusing on long-term progress rather than short-term commercial profits. This contrasts with Openai, which moved from a nonprofit to commercial business after the unexpected success of ChatGPT in 2022. Openai reported nearly $4 billion in revenue last year, and is projecting $11.6 billion this year.
Sutskever’s approach reflects lessons from his time at Openai. He was an early advocate for scaling AI through large-scale computing power and data. This is a strategy that led to breakthroughs like ChatGPT. However, as availability of high-quality training data decreased, Sutskever shifted its focus to the inference stage in which AI models generate output, facilitating OpenAI progress with inference models.
SSI’s leadership team includes former Apple AI director Daniel Gross and former Openai researcher Daniel Levy. The company holds details on how it works and Roadmap Limited. Sutskever once described SSI paths as “a new mountain climbing,” but it hasn’t been made public as much.
Sutskever’s departure from Openai came after a tense period of time when he saw the removal of CEO Sam Altman. Satsukeiber later expressed regret for his involvement and posted on X. I love everything we built together and do everything we can to reunite the company. ”
Meanwhile, AI startup investments continue to be strong. Openai is in talks to double its valuation to $300 billion, and humanity is approaching a valuation of $60 billion. However, competition is intensifying. Chinese AI company Deepseek recently introduced an open source model that is corresponding to a fraction of the US cost, contributing to a $600 billion decline in Nvidia’s market capitalization in January.
Despite these shifts, major tech companies continue to pour their funds into AI development, as reflected in their latest revenue reports.
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