Ineffable Intelligence raises $1.1 billion seed round in two tranches at sharply different valuations

David Silver founded Ineffable Intelligence after leaving Google DeepMind, where he spent over a decade. The startup raised $1.1 billion in seed funding in 2026 through two tranches, according to @Forbes reported. The first tranche raised $11 million from Sequoia and other investors at about $55 million pre-money valuation, per company filings.

Within a month the second tranche raised an additional $1.1 billion at a $4 billion pre-money valuation from Lightspeed, Index Ventures, DST Global and Sequoia. The second tranche valuation was over 70 times the first. Headlines described the round as Europe's largest seed round and valued the company at $5.1 billion.

The majority of Sequoia's investment occurred at the higher valuation, a person familiar with the deal said. The United Kingdom's Sovereign AI fund and the British Business Bank also backed the company. Similar two-tranche structures appeared in other AI deals.

Baseten raised $1.5 billion across tranches at $11 billion and $13 billion valuations. Aaru and Serval raised funding in tranches as well, multiple sources told @Forbes reported. " Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire replied that the pattern had occurred five times during his seven-year tenure at the firm because other investors paid higher prices for hot AI companies.

Over 63 neolabs were collectively valued at more than $300 billion and raised about $48 billion as of May 2026, Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das said. Funds raised by neolabs accounted for 16 percent of the roughly $283 billion invested in startups other than OpenAI or Anthropic over the last year.