UK-based AI startup Ineffable raises $1.1 billion in Europe's largest seed financing

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LONDON, April 27 : UK-based Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has raised $1.1 billion in a seed funding round led by U.S. venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed, with backing from the British government.

The round - Europe's largest seed financing to date - included participation from Nvidia and Google, and values Ineffable at $5.1 billion, the company said on Monday.

The British government said its Sovereign AI initiative and the British Business Bank will co-invest in Ineffable as it seeks to strengthen domestic artificial intelligence capabilities in the global race for the technology.

Separately, the British Business Bank said it had invested $20 million in Ineffable, adding to an AI portfolio that includes nine investments over the past 12 months, among them Wayve and PolyAI.

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Ineffable, led by Silver - one of the world's most prominent AI researchers and a professor at University College London - aims to build a "superlearner" that discovers knowledge through its own experience, from basic motor skills to intellectual breakthroughs, without relying on human-generated data.

"We believe in this nation's entrepreneurs and innovators and we are backing them to seize the benefits of AI for the UK," technology minister Liz Kendall said in the government's statement. "This investment in Ineffable will support a company at the very frontier of AI, with the potential to transform entire sectors."

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