Anthropic, an AI safety and research company, announced on May 28, 2021 that it has raised $124 million in a Series A financing round. The company said the funds will support its research roadmap and the construction of prototypes for reliable, steerable AI systems.
Leadership and research background
Anthropic is led by siblings Dario Amodei (Chief Executive Officer) and Daniela Amodei (President). The team has previously published and worked on topics related to large language and general AI models, including research connected to GPT-3, Circuit-Based Interpretability, Multimodal Neurons, Scaling Laws, AI & Compute, Concrete Problems in AI Safety, and Learning from Human Preferences.
Use of proceeds
According to Anthropic, the financing will be used primarily for compute-intensive research aimed at building large-scale models that are more reliable, interpretable, and controllable. The company highlighted plans to increase model reliability, develop techniques and tools to improve interpretability, and integrate human feedback more tightly into development and deployment processes.
Investors
The Series A round was led by Jaan Tallinn, a technology investor and co-founder of Skype. Other participants named by the company included James McClave, Dustin Moskovitz, the Center for Emerging Risk Research, and Eric Schmidt, along with additional investors.
Hiring and further information
Anthropic said it is hiring researchers, engineers, and operational experts to help execute its research roadmap. Further details about the company’s research agenda and open positions are available on its website.
(Announcement date: May 28, 2021.)
