Former DeepMind researcher’s startup bags $1.1 billion in seed funding

UK-based Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has raised $1.1 billion in a seed funding round led by US venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed, with backing from the British government.

The round - ‌Europe's ⁠largest seed ⁠financing to date - included participation from Nvidia and Google , ​and values Ineffable at $5.1 billion, the company said on Monday.


The British ​government said its Sovereign AI initiative and the British Business Bank will co-invest in Ineffable as ​it seeks to strengthen domestic artificial ⁠intelligence capabilities in ‌the global race for the ​technology.

Separately, the ​British Business Bank said it had ⁠invested $20 million in Ineffable, adding to an ​AI portfolio that includes nine investments over ​the past 12 months, among them Wayve and PolyAI.

Ineffable, led by Silver - one of the world's most prominent AI researchers and a professor at University College London - aims to build a "superlearner" that ‌discovers knowledge through its own experience, from basic motor skills to intellectual breakthroughs, without ​relying on ​human-generated data.

"We ⁠believe in this nation's entrepreneurs and innovators and we are backing them to seize the benefits of AI ​for the UK," technology minister Liz Kendall said in the government's statement. "This investment in Ineffable will support a company at the very frontier of AI, with the potential to transform entire sectors."