NVIDIA and SV Angel to Back Humans& in Deal Valuing Startup at $4.48 Billion

Humans&, a newly formed startup aiming to build a next-generation artificial intelligence research lab, has secured a massive $480 million seed funding round, valuing the company at roughly $4.48 billion. The size of the raise stands out as highly unusual for a company still in its early stages, underscoring the intense investor appetite for frontier AI ventures.

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The funding round was led by SV Angel, the venture capital firm founded by well-known Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway. Georges Harik, a co-founder of Humans& and a former early Google employee, also participated as a lead investor.

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The roster of backers includes some of the most influential names in technology and finance, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, chipmaker Nvidia Corp., and GV, the investment arm previously known as Google Ventures.

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In addition to providing capital, Nvidia is expected to play a strategic role in the company’s development. Humans& said it plans to collaborate closely with Nvidia on both hardware and software, a partnership that could give the startup access to advanced computing infrastructure critical for training large-scale AI models.

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The San Francisco-based company was founded last year by a group of researchers and technologists with deep roots in leading AI organizations. Harik teamed up with Eric Zelikman and Yuchen He, both researchers from Elon Musk’s xAI, along with Andi Peng, who previously worked at Anthropic. The founding team is rounded out by Noah D. Goodman, a former research scientist at Google DeepMind.

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The founders’ combined experience spans many of the most prominent AI labs in the world, giving Humans& immediate credibility in a competitive and fast-moving field. Their backgrounds suggest the startup is positioning itself to compete at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence research, rather than focusing on short-term commercial applications alone.

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The sheer scale of the seed round highlights how aggressively investors are backing companies they believe could shape the future of AI. Valuations for startups working on foundational models and advanced AI systems have surged as major technology firms race to secure talent, compute resources, and intellectual property.

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For investors, the deal reflects a broader trend: capital is increasingly flowing to teams with proven track records at elite AI labs, even before products or revenue models are fully defined.

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The involvement of high-profile backers such as Bezos and Nvidia also signals confidence that Humans& could become a significant player in the AI ecosystem.

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As the company builds out its research efforts, markets will be watching how it deploys its substantial funding, particularly in areas like compute infrastructure, talent acquisition, and partnerships.

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With competition intensifying among frontier AI labs, execution will be key to justifying the lofty valuation attached to one of the largest seed rounds ever raised.

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