Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based research company, raised $30 million in seed funding led by Lux Capital and Khosla Ventures to develop nature-inspired foundation models based on evolution and collective intelligence. The round included major Japanese firms like NTT Group, Sony, and KDDI, making it among the first Japanese AI startups to secure top-tier Silicon Valley backing at seed stage. The funding enables the company to build a world-class AI lab in Japan and develop alternative foundation models outside the dominant transformer architecture paradigm.
Sakana AI received a supercomputing grant from Japan's government as one of seven institutions selected through the Generative AI Accelerator Challenge program. The grant provides access to a GPU cluster equipped with latest hardware for several months in 2024 to support foundation model development. The company plans to use the additional compute capacity to scale nature-inspired AI models and advance Japan's generative AI capabilities.
Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based AI research company, announced a Series A funding round raising approximately $200M led by New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, and Lux Capital, with participation from NVIDIA and major Japanese financial and industrial firms. The company will leverage NVIDIA GPU access and collaborate on research, infrastructure, and community building to develop nature-inspired foundation models. Sakana AI aims to establish a world-class AI lab in Japan to help the country address demographic decline and geopolitical challenges while building competitive advantage in AI development.
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