Latest news with #AI21
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia And Google Back AI21 Labs In $300M Series D To Build Proprietary LLMs, Challenging OpenAI And Anthropic In Enterprise AI
AI21 Labs, an Israeli generative AI startup building proprietary large language models, is raising a $300 million Series D funding round. The round boosts its total funding to $636 million and solidifies its position among the most heavily funded players in the AI infrastructure race, according to Business Insider. The company's investor roster includes Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Google, and Intel Capital, all returning to support this new raise. Other backers include Walden Catalyst, Pitango, Comcast Ventures, and Samsung Next. These firms have placed long-term bets on the Israel-based startup's vision of AI built from scratch to serve enterprises with reliability, transparency, and performance, Business Insider reports. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. Founded in 2017, AI21 Labs was created by three tech veterans: Amnon Shashua, the founder of Mobileye, Yoav Shoham, a Stanford professor and former principal scientist at Google, and Ori Goshen, a serial entrepreneur known for launching CrowdX. According to Business Insider, the trio has focused on designing large language models for real-world business use that outperform in high-stakes and logic-intensive environments where hallucinations are a costly liability. While most AI startups rely on foundation models created by OpenAI, Anthropic, AI21 Labs develops its own. These models, including the Jurassic-1 family and Jamba series, are purpose-built to meet the rigorous demands of enterprise clients, as detailed on the company's website. According to The New Stack, AI21 Labs' base model, Jurassic-1, contains up to 178 billion parameters, making it one of the largest LLMs on the market. It slightly surpasses OpenAI's GPT-3 Davinci model, which holds 175 billion parameters. Jurassic-1 is designed for high-performance use cases, with optimization for long-context comprehension and processing speed. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — The company's AI21 Studio allows developers to embed these models into applications for content generation, summarization, translation, and more. Enterprise customers include Capgemini, Fnac, and Wix (NASDAQ:WIX), which reportedly run hundreds of internal AI tools powered by AI21 infrastructure, Business Insider reports. According to Intel Capital, this full-stack approach has helped AI21 differentiate itself in a landscape crowded with LLM wrappers and API-dependent tools. The startup's goal is to offer a more dependable AI backbone, one that addresses the growing enterprise need for accuracy, auditability, and scalability, AI21 said in a blog post. In March, AI21 introduced a flagship orchestration system called Maestro. Designed to increase the reliability of LLMs, Maestro functions as an AI planner that improves model reasoning by over 10% and reduces hallucinations by 50%, based on internal system breaks tasks into steps, selects optimal strategies, and validates results against user-defined constraints. According to the company's website, Maestro has improved instruction-following accuracy for both Claude and GPT-based systems by significant margins, respectively from around 88% to 95.2% for Claude Sonnet 3.5, and around 85% to 91.9% for GPT. AI21 Labs' $300 million raise comes during a record-breaking quarter for AI venture capital. According to Crunchbase, nearly $7 billion was invested in AI startups globally in April, representing 30% of all venture funding. Israeli tech companies alone have secured more than $12 billion in 2024 so far, marking a 31% increase from the previous year, Business Insider reports. The startup's steady momentum, combined with backing from Nvidia and Google, positions it as a rising force in the LLM sector. As demand grows for transparent and controllable AI systems, AI21's full-stack platform and orchestration tools may offer a compelling alternative to black-box models. Read Next:Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte's fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? NVIDIA (NVDA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Nvidia And Google Back AI21 Labs In $300M Series D To Build Proprietary LLMs, Challenging OpenAI And Anthropic In Enterprise AI originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia-backed Israeli AI startup AI21 is raising a $300 million funding round
AI21 is raising a $300 million Series D funding round to build its own LLMs. AI21 aims to reduce hallucinations in generative AI, enhancing reliability for companies. Investors include Google and Nvidia; customers include Wix and Capgemini. AI21, an Israeli startup building its own large language models (LLMs), is raising a $300 million Series D funding round, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. The valuation could not be learned. The company last raised $208 million at a $1.4 billion valuation in 2023. This round would bring the company's total funding to $636 million. AI21 was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs and AI researchers Amnon Shashua (founder and CEO of Mobileye), Professor Yoav Shoham (Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and former Principal Scientist at Google), and Ori Goshen (serial entrepreneur and founder of CrowdX). While many AI startups rely on existing LLMs built by companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, AI21 is building its LLMs from the ground up. Its goal is to make generative AI more dependable for companies by reducing hallucinations, which are when LLMs present false information as fact. In March, AI21 launched an AI orchestration system called Maestro it says is capable of reducing hallucinations by 50% and boosting reasoning model accuracy to over 95%. Existing investors in AI21 include Google, Nvidia, Intel Capital, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB10X, b2venture, Samsung Next, Comcast Ventures, and Ahren Innovation Capital. Customers include FNAC, Capgemini, and website builder Wix. About $7 billion in investment went to AI-related startups last month, representing 30% of venture funding worldwide, according to Crunchbase data. Israeli tech companies have raised more than $12 billion in 2024, up 31% from 2023, according to Startup Nation Central. Israeli cybersecurity company Wix was just acquired by Google for $32 billion, the search giant's largest ever acquisition. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Nvidia-backed Israeli AI startup AI21 is raising a $300 million funding round
The valuation could not be learned. The company last raised $208 million at a $1.4 billion valuation in 2023. This round would bring the company's total funding to $636 million. AI21 was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs and AI researchers Amnon Shashua (founder and CEO of Mobileye), Professor Yoav Shoham (Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and former Principal Scientist at Google), and Ori Goshen (serial entrepreneur and founder of CrowdX). While many AI startups rely on existing LLMs built by companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, AI21 is building its LLMs from the ground up. Its goal is to make generative AI more dependable for companies by reducing hallucinations, which are when LLMs present false information as fact. In March, AI21 launched an AI orchestration system called Maestro it says is capable of reducing hallucinations by 50% and boosting reasoning model accuracy to over 95%. Existing investors in AI21 include Google, Nvidia, Intel Capital, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB10X, b2venture, Samsung Next, Comcast Ventures, and Ahren Innovation Capital. Customers include FNAC, Capgemini, and website builder Wix. About $7 billion in investment went to AI-related startups last month, representing 30% of venture funding worldwide, according to Crunchbase data. Israeli tech companies have raised more than $12 billion in 2024, up 31% from 2023, according to Startup Nation Central. Israeli cybersecurity company Wix was just acquired by Google for $32 billion, the search giant's largest ever acquisition.
Business Insider
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Nvidia-backed Israeli AI startup AI21 is raising a $300 million funding round
AI21, an Israeli startup building its own large language models (LLMs), is raising a $300 million Series D funding round, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. The valuation could not be learned. The company last raised $208 million at a $1.4 billion valuation in 2023. This round would bring the company's total funding to $636 million. AI21 was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs and AI researchers Amnon Shashua (founder and CEO of Mobileye), Professor Yoav Shoham (Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and former Principal Scientist at Google), and Ori Goshen (serial entrepreneur and founder of CrowdX). While many AI startups rely on existing LLMs built by companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, AI21 is building its LLMs from the ground up. Its goal is to make generative AI more dependable for companies by reducing hallucinations, which are when LLMs present false information as fact. In March, AI21 launched an AI orchestration system called Maestro it says is capable of reducing hallucinations by 50% and boosting reasoning model accuracy to over 95%. Existing investors in AI21 include Google, Nvidia, Intel Capital, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB10X, b2venture, Samsung Next, Comcast Ventures, and Ahren Innovation Capital. Customers include FNAC, Capgemini, and website builder Wix. About $7 billion in investment went to AI-related startups last month, representing 30% of venture funding worldwide, according to Crunchbase data. Israeli tech companies have raised more than $12 billion in 2024, up 31% from 2023, according to Startup Nation Central. Israeli cybersecurity company Wix was just acquired by Google for $32 billion, the search giant's largest ever acquisition.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI21 Introduces Maestro, the World's First AI Planning and Orchestration System Built for the Enterprise
AI21 is leading the shift from LLMs and Reasoning models to planning AI systems. Maestro increases the accuracy of GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet 3.5 by up to 50% on complex, multi-requirement tasks, transforming AI from an unpredictable tool to a trustworthy system. LAS VEGAS, March 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- AI21, a pioneer in frontier models and AI systems, today unveiled Maestro, the world's first AI Planning and Orchestration System designed to deliver trustworthy AI at scale for organizations. Introduced at the HumanX 2025 conference, Maestro marks a significant advancement in enterprise AI, boosting the instruction-following accuracy of paired Large Language Models (LLMs) by up to 50% and ensuring guaranteed quality, reliability, and observability. This technology transcends the limitations of traditional LLMs and Large Reasoning Models (LRMs), setting a new benchmark for AI capabilities. Maestro delivers a substantial improvement in LLM performance on complex tasks. It elevates the accuracy of models like GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet 3.5 by up to 50% and empowers reasoning models, such as o3-mini, to surpass 95% accuracy. Notably, Maestro bridges the performance gap between non-reasoning and reasoning models, aligning the accuracy of Claude Sonnet 3.5 with advanced reasoning models like o3-mini. While enterprises are eager to integrate AI into their operations, large-scale generative AI deployments often falter. According to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) CDO Agenda 2024, only 6% of organizations have a generative AI application in deployment, highlighting the fundamental limitations of current AI solutions for mission-critical tasks. The prevailing approaches—"Prompt and Pray" and hard-coded chains—present significant challenges. The "Prompt and Pray" method, which relies on LLMs and LRMs to execute open-ended tasks, lacks control and reliability due to the probabilistic nature of these models. Hard-coded chains, while more predictable, are rigid, labor-intensive, and prone to failure under changing conditions. Reasoning models, designed to solve complex tasks through thinking tokens, have not alleviated these issues. They exhibit inconsistent performance, struggle to adhere to instructions, and fail to reliably utilize tools. Consequently, none of these approaches delivers the accuracy, reliability, and adaptability essential for widespread enterprise adoption. "Mass adoption of AI by enterprises is the key to the next industrial revolution," said Ori Goshen, Co-CEO of AI21. "AI21's Maestro is the first step toward that future – moving beyond the unpredictability of available solutions to deliver AI that is reliable at scale. Delivering complex decision-making with built-in quality control, it enables businesses to harness AI with confidence. This is how we bridge the gap between AI potential and real-world solutions." "Wix is leading the charge in LLM adoption, powering hundreds of AI applications," said Avishai Abrahami, CEO of WIX. "Maestro ushers in a new era of agentic AI – striking a necessary balance between quality, control, and trust that could be a key factor in our ability to develop trustworthy AI applications at scale." "The potential of enterprise AI lies in balancing innovation with reliability," said Elad Tsur, Chief AI Officer at Applied Systems. "AI21 Maestro is a promising step toward making AI more controllable and useful for business applications, bridging the gap between powerful AI models and real-world enterprise needs." Maestro, powered by the AI Planning and Orchestration System (AIPOS), delivers reliable, system-level AI by integrating LLMs or LRMs into a framework that analyzes actions, plans solutions, and validates results. This framework learns the enterprise environment to ensure accuracy and efficiency, allowing builders to define requirements and obtain results that meet their criteria within seconds. By eliminating the need for prompt engineering and rigid workflows, Maestro delivers on the promise of truly trustworthy AI. Request early access to Maestro API by visiting About AI21AI21 is a pioneer in Foundation Models and AI Systems designed for enterprises. AI21's mission is to create trustworthy artificial intelligence that powers humanity towards superproductivity. Founded in 2017 by AI visionaries Prof. Amnon Shashua, Prof. Yoav Shoham, and Ori Goshen, AI21 has secured $336 million in funding from industry leaders, including NVIDIA, Google, and Intel, reinforcing its commitment to advancing AI innovation. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE AI21 Labs
