Independent benchmarks that score frontier models on real professional work
Vals AI builds independent, domain-specific benchmarks that score frontier models on real professional work rather than on academic test sets — law, finance, tax, coding, cybersecurity and biosecurity — and keeps the underlying test material confidential so labs cannot train against it. It publishes public leaderboards (the Vals Index, the Finance Agent Benchmark, the Vals Legal AI Report) and sells private evaluation infrastructure to model labs and enterprise engineering teams; its results are cited in model cards from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and xAI. Founded in 2024 by Stanford classmates Rayan Krishnan (CEO) and Langston Nashold (CTO), the San Francisco company raised a $40M Series A on 13 August 2026 led by Andreessen Horowitz at a reported $400M valuation, with existing backers 8VC, Pear VC and Bloomberg Beta joined by Hudson River Trading and NextLadder Ventures. Revenue is reported at roughly 8x the prior year and headcount has grown from 8 to 25.
AI📍 San Francisco, CAFounded 2024
Current Valuation
$400M
as of 2026-08-13
PRIVATE
QL Price
$400M
0% vs last round
QuantLogix's current estimate for Vals AI, published 2026-10-14 — in line with the last disclosed round of $400M (2026-08-13).
Confidence
low
Basis
round anchored
What backs this price
Last disclosed round
$400M
2026-08-13
weight 0.89
How this price has held up
No round has priced for Vals AI since QuantLogix began publishing a price for it, so there is nothing to grade yet. The claim above is on the record from 2026-10-14 and will be graded against the next priced round. See the full accuracy record →
Which publicly-traded funds already hold it, what $10,000 buys, and whether any route is open to you.
Cite this price as QuantLogix QL Price, Vals AI, 2026-10-14 (9341259b63fcdd7f).
The id pins this exact claim, so a citation stays checkable after the price moves.
Model estimate for research — not a quote, target price, or investment advice.
IPO Outlookprivate
Is Vals AI going public?
No. Vals AI is private and has not filed to go public. There is no S-1 on file.
What is Vals AI's valuation in 2026?
Vals AI is valued at $400M as of 08/13/2026, set by its Series A ($40M, Aug 2026). That is the last confirmed mark, not a live price — private shares do not trade continuously.
Has Vals AI filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Vals AI.
Who are Vals AI's investors?
Vals AI's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Pear VC, Bloomberg Beta, Hudson River Trading, NextLadder Ventures.
Is Vals AI publicly traded — can you buy Vals AI stock?
No. Vals AI is a private company — its shares are not listed on any exchange and there is no ticker. The routes to exposure are pre-IPO secondary marketplaces and funds (accredited investors), employee tender offers when the company runs one, and public companies with read-through exposure. QuantLogix maps every route it can verify for Vals AI on its Pre-IPO Access Desk.
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.
Company Profile
CEO
Rayan Krishnan
Founded
2024
HQ
San Francisco, CA
Employees
25
Growth
Revenue about 8x the prior year (company statement, reported); headcount up from 8 to 25 with 10-15 more hires planned
Last Round
Series A — $40M (Aug 2026) · Lead: Andreessen Horowitz
IPO Status
private
Fundraising Status
Series A · $40M · 2 mo ago
private1 disclosed rounds
Series A Impact
Round Size
$40M
Primary financing announced
Post-Money Valuation
$400M
Company-announced mark
Round / Post-Money
10.0%
New capital ÷ post-money
Step-up compares disclosed post-money valuations. Round / post-money is a financing-size ratio, not an ownership or dilution estimate.
Funding History
Round
Amount
Date
Lead Investor
Post-Money
Series A
$40M
Aug 2026
Andreessen Horowitz
$400M
Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML
Open models
0
Downloads (30d)
0
across all models
Followers
13
Attributed to Hugging Face organization "Vals AI" as of 2026-10-14. 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
7
via ashby
Product-build share
71%
engineering, research, product, design
Trajectory
steady
heavy product build — 71% of open roles are product-building functions (engineering/research/product) — 2 of 7 open roles are research.
Actively hiring with no tracked executive churn.
Open roles by month
Open roles by function
■ product-building ■ go-to-market / G&A
Marketing DesignerEvaluations EngineerMember of Technical Staff - ResearchHead of ResearchFounding Product Manager (Vals Smith)Member of Technical Staff - Platform
Counted from Vals AI's live job board as of 2026-09-22; role functions classified from posting titles. Open-role counts are an activity signal, not headcount. Refreshed monthly.
Private evaluation infrastructure for labs and enterprise teams
Finance Agent Benchmark
Vals Legal AI Report (VLAIR)
Competitors
Patronus AI · Braintrust · LMArena · Artificial Analysis · Scale AI
AIModel EvaluationBenchmarksDeveloper ToolsEnterprise AI
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of 2026-08-13. Refreshed quarterly.