How a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product

TechCrunch AI · 2 hours ago

Andrew Dai, a former DeepMind researcher, founded Elorian to develop visual AI models and raised a $55 million seed round at a $300 million valuation within months of leaving Google. The company secured backing from strategic investors including Nvidia and Menlo Ventures, prioritizing investor quality and understanding of frontier AI development over maximum valuation. Elorian aims to advance visual understanding and reasoning in AI systems, an area Dai identified as having uneven progress compared to progress in mathematics, physics, and coding.