Sakana AI raises Series A funds from leading Japanese companies

Sakana AI, a Japanese startup, has been pioneering the field of evolving cutting-edge foundational models with an approach inspired by nature. In March of this year, they developed a way to automate the integration of multiple foundational models, including large language models (LLMs), and in June, they discovered a way to use LLMs to train LLMs more efficiently. In August, they realized an innovative technology that uses LLMs to “automate the research and development process itself,” which we named “AI Scientist”.

With the participation of Japanese companies, the company raised a total of approximately 30 billion yen in Series A

Sakana AI is building strong relationships with investors to further develop research and development based on its unique approach and spread its results to the world. In Series A funding, which will be an important step towards future growth, Sakana AI received investment from leading Silicon Valley VCs New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Translink Capital, 500 Global, and NVIDIA .

Today, Sakana AI has received new investment from some of Japan’s leading companies as part of their Series A funding round. The investors include leading Japanese banking groups, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Financial Group, as well as leading companies from various industries, such as NEC, SBI Group, Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Itochu Group, KDDI, Fujitsu, and Nomura Holdings.

Sakana AI continues to receive investment from Japanese VCs, led by Global Brain, JAFCO, and Miyako Capital.

This brings the total amount of Series A funding to approximately 30 billion yen.

The significance of collaborating with Japanese companies

As Sakana AI wants to inspire the world with new AI development, it goes without saying that receiving investment from leading Silicon Valley VCs and global companies like NVIDIA is extremely important. At the same time, receiving investment from and building partnerships with Japanese companies holds special meaning.

Sakana AI was founded in Japan and is proud to be based in Japan. The company’s founders value Japanese culture and customs, and believe that their primary mission is to contribute to solving problems in Japanese society. With numerous AI startups being born around the world and fierce competition occurring, Sakana AI is rooted in Japan and, as a company that will expand from Japan to the global market, they feel that they can demonstrate strengths that their rivals do not have.

Please follow us to read more about Finance & FinTech in Japan, like hundreds of readers do every day. We invite you to also register for our short weekly digest, the “Japan FinTech Observer”, on Medium or on LinkedIn.

We also provide a daily short-form Japan FinTech Observer news podcast, available via its Podcast Page. Our global Finance & FinTech Podcast, “eXponential Finance” is available through its own LinkedIn newsletter, or via its Podcast Page.

Should you live in Tokyo, or just pass through, please also join our meetup. In any case, our YouTube channel and LinkedIn page are there for you as well.