In a deal that could mark Europe’s biggest ever seed round, former Google DeepMind scientist David Silver is reportedly raising $1bn for a London AI lab.
The round, which values the new company Ineffable Intelligence at around $4bn, is being led by Sequoia Capital, people with knowledge of the deal told the Financial Times. Nvidia, Google and Microsoft are also said to be considering investing.
Silver, who left his research role at Google DeepMind late last year, hopes his new company will build on his work at the Big Tech research arm, particularly in reinforcement learning.
In this branch of machine learning, AI systems are trained to make decisions by interacting with an environment and receiving rewards or penalties based on their actions, enabling agents to learn through a trial-and-error process.
At Google DeepMind, Silver used reinforcement learning to train AI programs such as AlphaGo and AlphaStar to beat human players.
Silver, who is also currently a professor at University College London and will serve as Ineffable Intelligence’s CEO, is one of many top researchers in Europe who have left big AI labs in recent years to set up their own companies.
Former Meta chief scientist Yann LeCun is currently in talks to raise €500m at a €3bn valuation for a new world models startup, AMI Labs — for which, Sifted understands, he has assembled a team of researchers from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI and Meta.
Meanwhile, Paris-based AI giant Mistral was launched in 2023 by Google DeepMind alum Arthur Mensch and two former Meta researchers.
Ashish Patel, managing director at investment banking firm Houlihan Lokey Capital Solutions Group, tells Sifted Ineffable Intelligence's round is "further evidence that the UK and wider European ecosystem can produce globally significant companies", as "well-informed investors are seeking the most capable individuals developing the most advanced technologies."
Sifted approached Ineffable Intelligence for comment.
