David Silver, creator of AlphaGo at DeepMind, raises $1.1 billion for new AI lab Ineffable Intelligence
Ineffable Intelligence, the London-based artificial intelligence startup founded by former Google DeepMind researcher David Silver, announced on April 27 that it has secured $1.1 billion in seed funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion. The round ranks as Europe's largest seed financing to date and comes only months after the company was incorporated in late 2025.
Silver, who led DeepMind's reinforcement learning efforts for more than a decade and played a central role in developing AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and related systems, left the Google unit earlier in 2026 to launch the new venture.
He also holds a professorship at University College London. Ineffable Intelligence focuses on building what it calls a "superlearner," an AI system designed to acquire knowledge and skills through its own experience and interaction with environments rather than through large volumes of human-generated data.
According to the company, the approach draws directly from reinforcement learning techniques that allowed AlphaZero to master games like chess and Go without any human gameplay examples.
David Silver has described the mission in statements as making "first contact with superintelligence" by creating a system that "discovers all knowledge from its own experience, from elementary motor skills through to profound intellectual breakthroughs."
Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-led the funding round. Participants included Nvidia, Google, Index Ventures, DST Global, and the U.K. government's Sovereign AI Fund. Reports indicate Nvidia's venture arm contributed at least $250 million. The company has recruited researchers from DeepMind and other leading AI labs.
Ineffable Intelligence maintains a website at ineffable.ai but has released few technical specifics or a public product roadmap. It currently has no revenue.
The enormous seed round reflects strong investor interest in alternatives to the dominant large language model paradigm, which relies heavily on scraping internet text and other human-created datasets. Silver has positioned his effort as an attempt to move beyond perceived limits of that data-dependent scaling path.
In a recent interview, Silver outlined his personal stance on the project:
“It's a huge responsibility to build a company focusing on superintelligence. I think this is something that has to be done for the benefit of humanity, and any money that I make from Ineffable will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible.”
He has referred to the work as his life's project.
The raise occurs amid a broader pattern of prominent AI researchers departing established labs such as DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta to start independent ventures. Investors have directed substantial capital toward these new efforts in search of breakthroughs that could surpass current systems.
Ineffable Intelligence's structure and backing, including direct support from the British government, also tie into the U.K.'s push to position itself as a hub for advanced AI development.
Silver left DeepMind in early 2026 after the company had been incorporated in November 2025. Initial reports of the startup and its ambitions surfaced in January 2026.
The April 27 announcement marks its formal emergence from stealth with significant capital already committed. No additional rounds or product milestones have been disclosed at this stage.
