Index Ventures, a venture capital firm with over 28 years of experience and partnerships with renowned startups such as Revolut, Discord, and Figma, has raised more than $2 billion to invest in the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence.
With offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Geneva, and Jersey, the company secured a total of $2.3 billion from institutional investors, allocating $800 million for early-stage startups and $1.5 billion for late-stage companies.
Index was one of the initial investors in Mistral, Europe’s most valuable AI startup, and in Cohere, a Toronto-based company developing AI models for businesses. Additionally, the firm supported Scale AI, a provider of infrastructure for AI model companies, recently valued at $14 billion.
The significant increase in AI investments over the past year has raised concerns about a possible bubble in the sector. David Cahn, a partner at Sequoia Capital, warned of a “speculative frenzy” around AI, noting that “many people lose a lot of money during speculative tech waves.”
Most of the billions invested in AI startups have come from large tech groups like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, giving companies like OpenAI and Anthropic a significant advantage in model development.
Despite limited resources compared to tech giants, venture investors still bet that powerful AI models will create new application platforms, similar to what the internet and smartphones did in the past.
Index’s recent funding is below the $3.1 billion raised in 2021, reflecting a different market for startups today. However, the fundraising indicates a partial thaw in venture capital after two years of sector retrenchment.
