Jev maker TypeSafe AI raises $870M at $7.5B valuation

TypeSafe AI, the San Francisco startup behind the AI model Jev, has raised about $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, Bloomberg reported on Friday, Oct. 9. The deal came together a few weeks after Jev's launch video went viral. Co-founder Diogo Almeida said the video brought a wave of interest from chief executives, developers and investors.investing+1

The raise is one of the fastest climbs in value for an AI company this year. Less than a month ago, TypeSafe came out of stealth with a $40 million seed round.linkedin

Investors and adoption

Andreessen Horowitz put in the most money in the round. Sequoia Capital and several angel investors also took part. Both venture firms have backed OpenAI and xAI.investing

TypeSafe says about a third of Fortune 500 companies now use Jev, though it would not name any of them. The company also says the model passed 1 million users within days. Almeida told Bloomberg the company wants to improve trust in AI by offering a reliable, affordable option, and plans updates to Jev over the next several months.news.bloomberglaw+1

The final valuation came in below earlier reports. In late September, the company was said to be in advanced talks for a round that could value it at more than $10 billion.hyper

A different kind of model

Jev was built by researchers who came from OpenAI, Meta Platforms ↘ 0.31% and Google Alphabet Inc. ↗ 0.87%. Instead of chatting, it plugs into software and makes decisions. Because it doesn't generate text one token at a time, the company says it can do these jobs faster and more cheaply than large language models.investing

Almeida introduced Jev on Sept. 15. DCVC led the $40 million seed round. Examples of the work Jev targets include approving requests, sorting customer service tickets and insurance underwriting.linkedin+1

Competition from OpenAI

TypeSafe's rivals include Almeida's former employer. Fortune reported on Oct. 8 that Almeida helped develop ChatGPT and then spent two years building Jev, and that OpenAI is now moving into the same area. TypeSafe says Jev can make these judgment calls faster and more cheaply than general-purpose models, while still letting users set it up with plain-language instructions.fortune

James Hardiman, a general partner at DCVC, told Fortune that TypeSafe's two years of development are an advantage over its larger rival, pointing in particular to its work on reliability.fortune