Straight from Nikkei (Sakana AI takes crown as Japan’s most valuable unicorn – Nikkei Asia)

1. AI company Sakana AI has completed a funding round that values it at $2.635 billion (400 billion yen)
2. That makes it the highest value Japanese AI startup
3. It also makes it the highest valued unlisted Japanese startup of all time
4. Sakana AI is also the fastest Japanese company to reach a $1 billion valuation

Everything you wanted to know about Sakana AI, but were too afraid to ask

1. Based in Tokyo -> Sakana AI – Wikipedia
2. Launched in July 2023 (2.5 years ago)
3. The founders are – David Ha, Llion Jones, Ren Ito
   • Llion Jones is famous for his 2017 paper – All you need is Attention
4. Sakana AI had 20 employees in 2024
5. Focuses on evolution and collective intelligence of AI
6. Valuation soared to $1 billion+ by 2025, and as of Nov 16th, 2025 it is valued at $2.635 billion (400 billion yen)
7. It has an AI scientist project – A supposed model that will automate the entire process of scientific research
8. It developed a method to build new AI models by breeding multiple existing models
   • Sakana AI sees it as a means to democratize AI development
   • The process does not require large computational resources

Funding Rounds for Sakana AI

1. Seed Round – $30 Million at an Unknown Valuation in 2023 from Lux Capital and Khosla Ventures
2. Series A – $200 million in 2024 from Mitsubishi UFJ, SMBC, Mizuho, Itochu, Nomura, and Nvidia
3. Series B -> Unknown Amount of Funding in Nov 2025 at $2.635 billion valuation from Mitsubishi, etc