The latest funding round, led by investors Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia, has valued the just three-month-old company Safe Superintelligence (SSI) at around $5 billion. The startup, founded by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI, was able to raise an impressive $1 billion in capital despite lacking a finished product.

Sutskever founded the company together with experienced AI investors Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and former OpenAI researcher Daniel Levy. The fresh funds are primarily to be invested in computing resources and expanding the ten-person team. SSI focuses on developing advanced AI models that are intended to pave a secure path to superintelligence.

Unlike established companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI, which develop generally applicable AI models for consumers and businesses, SSI aims to directly achieve a safe superintelligence. "It is important for us to be surrounded by investors who understand, respect, and support our mission," CEO Daniel Gross told Reuters.

The high valuation of SSI despite the lack of a product demonstrates the enormous trust that investors place in the potential of artificial intelligence, particularly in the development of safe superintelligence. While competitors OpenAI and Anthropic recently reached valuations of over 100 billion USD and nearly 20 billion USD respectively, the investment sum reflects the expectation that SSI could play a key role in the future of AI.

SSI plans to attract additional talent in a highly competitive job market for AI experts and already has locations in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel. "We are assembling a highly skilled team of the world's best engineers and researchers who will be exclusively focused on SSI," the company website states.