Imbue AI Company Reaches $1 Billion Valuation Following Investment from Nvidia

Imbue, a startup that develops extensive language models for enhancing artificial intelligence tools, has secured $200 million in funding. The investment comes from various investors, including Nvidia Corp., and has propelled Imbue’s valuation to over $1 billion.

The nonprofit Astera Institute, founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, led the funding round, which included others including Kyle Vogt, CEO of General Motors Co.’s self-driving unit Cruise, the company said Thursday. The amount is 10 times larger than the startup has already collected. Forbes previously reported news of the funding round.

Imbue is one of a growing number of AI companies raising large rounds this year, reflecting both the frenzy surrounding the technology and the high costs associated with training AI models by feeding them massive amounts of online data. OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, and Inflection AI have each raised hundreds of millions or more to compete with larger tech companies in developing and deploying new models.

Imbue, formerly known as Generally Intelligent, said it focuses on building so-called artificial intelligence agents that can think. “Ultimately, we hope to release systems that enable anyone to build durable, custom AI agents that bring the power of AI to everyone,” the company wrote in a blog post Thursday announcing the round.

While AI chatbots like ChatGPT have received widespread attention, these tools can be limited by unreliable responses filled with inaccuracies and outright hallucinations. Some players in the tech industry have set their sights on developing AI agents that can perform a number of complex tasks on behalf of the user, be it market research or ordering supplies.

In a company blog post, Imbue argued that “robust reasoning” is a key factor in building effective AI agents. To achieve this, Imbue said it will build massive AI models with “internal inference benchmarks” and prototype agents internally. For now, though, the company is primarily working on AI agents that can code, a popular use for other AI tools.

Kanjun Qiu, co-founder and CEO of Imbue, previously launched Sourceress, an AI recruitment company, and Ember Hardware, a virtual reality startup. The company is a rare AI unicorn or startup valued at over $1 billion with a female CEO.

Imbue has previously raised funding from other notable names in tech, including Dropbox CEO Drew Houston.