Switzerland-based AI startup Giotto.ai is launching a funding round at a valuation exceeding $1bn, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The company aims to establish itself as a leading European entity in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Giotto.ai has engaged investment bank Lazard to assist in raising more than $200m (SFr158m), according to insiders who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the discussions.
The Lausanne-based company intends to use the funds to advance AI research, developing initial commercial prototypes for enterprise and government clients. It also plans to open-source select core technologies.
Both Giotto.ai and Lazard have opted not to comment on the fundraising process.
This funding initiative will serve as a barometer for investor interest in new European entrants within the competitive AGI landscape, the Reuters report suggested. The sector is otherwise largely dominated by US firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Meanwhile, the European AI sector is gaining momentum as the region seeks to carve out its own leadership and promote digital independence from US and Chinese influence.
Recently, French company Mistral AI completed a significant funding round, securing €1.7bn ($2bn) and achieving a valuation exceeding €14bn ($11.7bn), with substantial contributions from Dutch semiconductor major ASML.
Founded in 2017 by CEO Aldo Podesta, Giotto.ai has accumulated $19m in funding to date.
The company, which sold a medical device compliance product to RQM+ in 2022, is focused on core research in reasoning models.
Giotto.ai claims its research proficiency is demonstrated by leading the constrained Kaggle ARC-AGI-2 leaderboard with a 25% score, indicating a reduced cost per task compared to larger labs.
The ARC-AGI-2 framework assesses a model’s ability to infer rules from limited examples, a measure of initial general reasoning capabilities.
Performance on this test is considered a proxy for progress towards developing more advanced AI systems.
In competitive terms, Giotto participates in Kaggle’s fixed resource track, which includes constraints such as no internet connectivity, a standard hardware configuration, and a maximum time budget of 12 hours per run.
This approach contrasts with the unconstrained ARC Prize platform used by major labs such as OpenAI and xAI, which allows for the use of larger models and extensive computational resources aimed at achieving peak accuracy.
“Giotto.ai targets more than $1bn valuation in European funding” was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand.