Safe Superintelligence, the stealthy AI company led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, has raised another $2 billion in funding, pushing its valuation to a staggering $32 billion—despite having not launched a product, no public roadmap, and a website that’s little more than a mission statement.
Key Points
- SSI was founded in June 2024 by Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy
- The company has now raised $3B in total funding
- The $2B round was led by Greenoaks, with Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz participating
The startup was founded last June by Sutskever, alongside Daniel Gross, formerly of Apple, and AI researcher Daniel Levy. Their stated ambition is razor-focused: build a “safe superintelligence.” That phrase, at once aspirational and ominous, encapsulates the company’s entire pitch. There is no product yet—just a promise.
Greenoaks led the latest round, committing $500 million, according to sources who spoke to the Financial Times. Other major investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. SSI had previously raised $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation just seven months ago.
Chris McKay
Sutskever’s exit from OpenAI in May 2024 followed a failed boardroom coup against CEO Sam Altman. He was a central figure in the company’s alignment efforts—research aimed at ensuring AI systems behave in ways aligned with human interests. That same concern now forms the backbone of SSI’s mission, although details remain scarce.
Those close to SSI say the team is pursuing novel methods to scale AI systems and push past today’s language models, which still fall short of true human-level reasoning. Sutskever told the Financial Times last year that the company has “identified a new mountain to climb,” signaling a different path from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google DeepMind. But beyond that, the team has kept even investors in the dark.
For now, Safe Superintelligence remains just that—a name, a promise, and a bet. But in the current AI funding climate, for some investors, that’s enough.