Devoured - April 28, 2026
Former Google DeepMind researcher's AI startup raises record $1.1 billion seed funding to pursue superintelligence (3 minute read)

Former Google DeepMind researcher's AI startup raises record $1.1 billion seed funding to pursue superintelligence (3 minute read)

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Former DeepMind researcher David Silver raised a record $1.1 billion seed round for his new AI lab pursuing superintelligence through reinforcement learning.

What: Ineffable Intelligence, founded in late 2025 by David Silver (former lead of DeepMind's reinforcement learning team), emerged from stealth with $1.1 billion in seed funding at a $5.1 billion valuation, backed by Sequoia, Lightspeed, Nvidia, Google, and the UK's Sovereign AI Fund.
Why it matters: The raise exemplifies an accelerating talent exodus from Big Tech AI divisions, with top researchers launching competing labs and raising billions in capital within months of founding, including Recursive Superintelligence ($1B) and AMI Labs ($1B from former Meta AI chief Yann LeCun).
Deep dive
  • The $1.1 billion seed round is the largest ever raised in Europe, valuing the months-old startup at $5.1 billion
  • Ineffable Intelligence focuses on reinforcement learning, training AI models through experience rather than on scraped internet text like most large language models
  • Silver describes the goal as creating "a superlearner that discovers all knowledge from its own experience, from elementary motor skills through to profound intellectual breakthroughs"
  • The funding round attracted both US venture capital (Sequoia, Lightspeed) and strategic investors including Nvidia, Google (Silver's former employer), and the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund
  • This continues a 2025-2026 pattern of DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta researchers departing to start well-funded competitors
  • Recent similar ventures include Recursive Superintelligence (Tim Rocktäschel, ex-DeepMind), AMI Labs (Yann LeCun, ex-Meta), and Periodic Labs and Humans& (staff from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI)
  • The UK government framed the investment as critical to positioning Britain as "an AI maker" rather than just an AI consumer
Decoder
  • Reinforcement learning: An AI training approach where models learn through trial and error from their own experience, rather than being trained on human-labeled data or internet text
  • Superintelligence: Hypothetical AI that surpasses human intelligence across all domains, not yet achieved
  • Seed round: The first significant funding round for a startup, typically ranging from hundreds of thousands to low millions; $1.1 billion is extraordinarily large for this stage
Original article
  • A former Google DeepMind researcher announced on Monday a record $1.1 billion for his new AI lab.
  • Ineffable Intelligence garnered backing from Sequoia, Lightspeed, Nvidia and Google, and emerged from stealth with a $5.1 billion valuation.
  • Silver is one of a number of former top researchers at Big Tech companies who've jumped ship to launch their own AI labs in recent months.

A former top researcher at Google AI division DeepMind announced Monday a record $1.1 billion seed round for his months-old startup, Ineffable Intelligence.

The startup is pursuing superintelligence and was founded in late 2025 by UCL professor and former lead of DeepMind's reinforcement learning team, David Silver. The seed round is the largest ever in Europe, according to the company, amounting to a valuation of $5.1 billion.

The round was co-led by U.S. venture capitalists Sequoia and Lightspeed, with participation from Nvidia , DST Global, Index, Google and the U.K.'s Sovereign AI Fund, among others.

Ineffable Intelligence will focus on reinforcement learning, which is when artificial intelligence models learn from experience as opposed to human data. That compares with many leading AI models that are trained on internet text.

Silver said the company is aiming to "transcend the greatest inventions in human history, such as language, science, mathematics and technology."

"Our mission is to make first contact with superintelligence," said Silver in a statement.

"We are creating a superlearner that discovers all knowledge from its own experience, from elementary motor skills through to profound intellectual breakthroughs," he added.

Big Tech talent exodus fuels startup boom

Silver is one of several former top researchers at Big Tech companies who've jumped ship to launch their own AI labs in recent months, with investors funneling billions of dollars into the ventures.

Last week, a months-old startup called Recursive Superintelligence — founded by former Google DeepMind engineer Tim Rocktäschel — was reported by the Financial Times to be raising up to $1 billion. AMI Labs announced a $1 billion raise in March, months after its founder, Yann LeCun, announced he was leaving his role as Meta 's AI chief.

In the past year, former staff at OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic and xAI have also raised hundreds of millions from investors for months-old ventures, including AI labs Periodic Labs and Humans&.

"This investment in Ineffable will support a company at the very frontier of AI, with the potential to transform entire sectors, underlining our determination to ensure that the UK isn't just an AI taker but an AI maker," the U.K's Science and Technology secretary, Liz Kendall, said in a statement.