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Sakana AI

Developing nature-inspired foundation models using evolutionary and collective intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence 📍 Tokyo, Japan Founded 2023
Current Valuation
$2.6B
as of 2025-Q4
UNICORN

IPO Outlookprivate

Is Sakana AI going public?
No. Sakana AI is private and has not filed to go public. There is no S-1 on file.
What is Sakana AI's valuation in 2026?
Sakana AI is valued at $2.6B as of 2025-Q4, set by its Series B ($135M, Nov 2025). That is the last confirmed mark, not a live price — private shares do not trade continuously.
Has Sakana AI filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Sakana AI.
Who are Sakana AI's investors?
Sakana AI's investors include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), NVIDIA, New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Google and 2 more.
Answers are derived from the roster record shown on this page — filing status, last round and confirmed marks. Where the record is silent, the answer says so rather than guessing.
Sakana AI is a Tokyo-based research lab that develops foundation models using evolutionary and collective intelligence. Founded by former Google researchers, the company focuses on efficient and sustainable AI architectures like model merging and autonomous scientific research systems.

Company Profile

CEO
David Ha
Founded
2023
HQ
Tokyo, Japan
Employees
~120-150
Total Raised
$379M
Est. Revenue
$30M (2025)
Growth
Rapidly growing AI unicorn focused on sustainable and bio-inspired architectures.
Last Round
Series B — $135M (Nov 2025) · Lead: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG)
IPO Status
private

Fundraising Status

Series B · $135M · 9 mo ago
privateTotal raised $379M

Secondary Market

Implied price / share
$2.29
Open interest
4
Secondary price return by period
Secondary market period returns3-month-8.4%6-month-23.7%1-year-23.7%All-time-8.4%
Implied per-share price from private secondary transactions, as of Jun 2026. This is a point estimate, not a quote — the feed carries no bid, ask or spread, and a secondary print is evidence of what someone paid on that date rather than a live market. Compare across every tracked name →

Latest Funding Round

RoundAmountDateLead InvestorPost-Money
Series B$135MNov 2025Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG)

Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML

Open models
49
verified organization
Downloads (30d)
0
across all models
Followers
918
Attributed to Hugging Face organization "Sakana AI" as of 2026-08-19. Open-weights footprint only — closed-model usage is not publicly measurable. Verify on Hugging Face ↗

Talent Signal

Hiring trend
First snapshot
trend accrues with monthly sweeps
Open roles
11
via careers page
Product-build share
55%
engineering, research, product, design
Trajectory
steady
product-led hiring — 55% of open roles build product; the rest are go-to-market and G&A.
Actively hiring with no tracked executive churn.
Open roles by month
Open roles by month11Aug '26
Open roles by function
Open roles by functionResearch3Ops & People3Clinical & Science1Engineering1Design1Finance & Strategy1Legal & Policy1
product-building   go-to-market / G&A
Full-time / Visiting Researcher / Internship\\Japanese (Conversational) & English](https://sakana.ai/careers/applied-research-Japanese (Business)](https://sakana.ai/careers/public-sector-specialist-rsi-lab/Japanese (Business)](https://sakana.ai/careers/cybersecurity-engineer/)Japanese (Business) & English](https://sakana.ai/careers/product-designer/)Internship / Visiting Researcher\\
Counted from Sakana AI's live job board as of 2026-08-17; role functions classified from posting titles. Open-role counts are an activity signal, not headcount. Refreshed monthly.

Founders & Key People

David HaLlion JonesRen Ito

Investors

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) · NVIDIA · New Enterprise Associates · Khosla Ventures · Lux Capital · Google · Salesforce Ventures · Mitsubishi Electric

Products

  • EvoLLM
  • AI Scientist
  • Continuous Thought Machines
  • Transformer Squared
  • Sakana Marlin
  • KAME

Competitors

OpenAI · Anthropic · Mistral · Cohere · Aleph Alpha
Evolutionary AIFoundation ModelsNature-inspiredCollective IntelligenceTokyo AI Hub
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of 2025-Q4. Refreshed quarterly.