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Ex-Meta exec seeks funds for AI startup at $2.5b valuation
Thomas Reardon, who led work on Meta’s Neural Band, is raising money for Flourish, a new AI startup.
It is in talks with investors at a US$2.5 billion valuation.
Lux Capital and Google Ventures have agreed to be major investors, and backers have already committed US$500 million.
Reardon recently said he was starting a company focused on AI systems that use less power, as current AI tools are increasing electricity demand in the US.
Flourish has been recruiting AI researchers and neuroscientists and looking at connectomics, a field that maps neuron connections.
The valuation could reach US$3.5 billion as talks continue.
🔗 Source: Bloomberg
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Implications, context, and why it matters.
Lux Capital’s deep-tech track record helps frame the valuation talks
- Lux Capital, where Reardon is a venture partner, recently closed a US$1.5 billion ninth fund, its largest so far. That brought assets under management to US$7 billion 1.
- The firm backs frontier science and defense technology. Its portfolio includes Anduril, a defense technology startup, and Recursion Pharmaceuticals, an AI drug discovery company 1.
- That record of early bets on hard scientific work helps explain why Lux Capital appears open to backing a new startup now in talks at a US$2.5 billion valuation 1.
Flourish’s low-power AI plan centers on the industry’s energy strain
- Flourish is building lower-power AI systems around a growing limit in the sector. Electricity is harder to secure, and power-hungry computing infrastructure is expensive to run.
- Its interest in connectomics suggests the company could be testing brain-inspired methods that differ from today’s standard AI model designs.
- That idea helps explain early investor support, even though the company has shared little about its products in public.
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