NVIDIA-backed Japanese AI company Sakana raises $214 million, Nomura Holdings and others participate

On September 18th, Japanese artificial intelligence company SakanaAI raised about 30 billion yen (about 214 million US dollars) in the A round of financing, and the company valuation reached 1.50 billion US dollars. Sakana AI was established only one year ago and was founded by former Google researchers in July 2023. Investors in this round of financing include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank and Nomura Holdings, as well as well-known companies such as NEC, Itochu Corporation, KDDI and Fujitsu.
SakanaAI has secured the processing time of a Japanese supercomputer and is working with multiple organizations to strengthen Japan's AI ecosystem. This echoes NVIDIA's recently launched initiative to support Japan's sovereign AI projects.