DeepMind’s David Silver seeks $1B seed round for London AI lab Ineffable Intelligence
What's the deal? David SilverDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a former Google DeepMind researcher behind AlphaGo, is raising $1 billion for a new London-based startup, Ineffable Intelligence.
The Sequoia-led round would value the company at about $4 billion and could become Europe’s largest seed deal. Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft are also in talks to invest, according to people familiar with the matter.
Silver left DeepMind in late 2025 and is building AI systems that learn through experience, aiming for what he calls “superhuman intelligence.”
Why now? Investors are racing to back elite researchers leaving big AI labs to launch experimental companies. AI agents capable of completing complex tasks are increasingly viewed as the next major step in commercialising the technology.
Silver believes experience-based learning could ultimately outstrip models trained mainly on internet text.
What could go wrong? Ineffable Intelligence remains early-stage, and negotiations are ongoing. A $1 billion seed round sets enormous expectations for a company without proven products.
Competition is intense, with other well-funded spinouts pursuing similar ambitions.
The signal: The scramble for Silver highlights how AI investing is shifting, with pedigree and talent drawing massive funding before traction. Europe is trying to stay competitive by backing potential champions earlier and at larger scale.
Capital is concentrating in a handful of AI bets as investors look beyond today’s large language models.
Sources:
The Financial Times
Sifted
Tech Funding News
Capacity
Implicator.ai
J.V.
