Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI startup co-founded last year by former Openai chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is in talks to raise funds at a valuation of at least $20 billion, Reuters said on the issue. I reported using cited four well-versed sources.
The new funds will valuate SSI’s $5 billion valuation from the final round of SSI to $400 million from the final round of September, with five well-known investors including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and DST Global raised $1 billion from.
Funding news comes hours after SoftBank has invested $40 billion in Openai, valued at $260 billion.
Sutskever, who also co-founded Openai, clarified SSI’s mission in May. Even though they still don’t have income, startups focus on building smarter AI than humans, but investor interest is in place while ensuring that it matches human interests. Masu.
“Safe Superintelligence, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded last year by former Openai chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is in talks to raise funds at a valuation of at least $20 billion,” Reuters reported.
SSI fundraising especially comes as the AI industry is reevaluating its ratings, especially after Chinese startup DeepSeek introduced a low-cost AI model last month. Sources who requested anonymity say that conversations with investors are still in the early stages and conditions may change. It is unclear how much SSI is aiming for a salary increase.
Established in June, SSI has offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv. Alongside Sutskever, other co-founders are Daniel Gross, who led the AI initiative at Apple, and Daniel Levy, a former Openai researcher. The company has not responded to requests for comment.
Secret AI Startup
There is little detail about SSI’s work, but the topics around the startups stem mainly from Sutskever’s reputation. Known for his role in breakthroughs that fueled the generative AI boom, Sutskever was an early advocate for scaling, expanding large-scale computing power and data to improve AI models. This approach played a pivotal role in the development of CHATGPT, driving billions in AI infrastructure investments.
However, Sutskever also recognized limitations on this method, particularly a reduced pool of training data. He shifted focus to the inference stage when trained AI models produce results, leading the team of directors of Openai’s recent advances in inference models.
SSI’s growth approach is different from other AI labs. The startup has plans to “expand in peace” to investors and has declared progress from short-term commercial demand. This contrasts with Openai, which moved from a nonprofit to a profitable business after the unexpected success of ChatGPT in 2022. Openai pulled nearly $4 billion last year and projected $11.6 billion this year.
Public information about SSI methods is still minimal. In an interview with Reuters last year, Sutskever called the startup’s instructions “a new mountain to climb,” but shared more than that.
Fallout and Focus
Sutskever co-led with Jan Leike and the SuperAlignment team at Openai. Openai disbanded the Super Alignment Team immediately after its departure and redistributed its members internally. Leike later commented that Openai had acquired a back seat in product development as it focused on safety.
The leadership of SSI, consisting of Sutskever, Gross, and Levy, highlights its singular mission. “Our name reflects our purpose,” the company posted on X.
The exit from Openai in Sutskever followed a period of turbulence, marked by the controversial removal of CEO Sam Altman. Satsukeiber later expressed regret for his role, saying in X, “I had no intention of hurting Open. I love everything we built together and do whatever I can to reunite the company. I’ll do that.”
Meanwhile, fundraising for foundation model companies and generative AI startups continues with no signs of slowing down. Openai is in talks to double its valuation to $300 billion, and humanity is approaching its valuation of $60 billion in its latest funding round.
Still, investors are facing new scrutiny following the rise of Deepseek. Deepseek is comparable to US counterparts at the cost of open source models. The emergence of Deepseek wiped out nearly $600 billion from Nvidia’s market capitalization in late January. Nevertheless, major tech companies continue to increase their AI investments, as reflected in their recent earnings reports.
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