Jan 6 (Reuters) – LMArena said on Tuesday its valuation had tripled to $1.7 billion in about eight months, following a new funding round in which it raised $150 million, as investors continue to pour into artificial intelligence startups.
Investor enthusiasm for generative AI has increased after ChatGPT’s 2022 launch showed its commercialization potential, “leading to a race for adoption” and a rush on Wall Street for exposure to the boom’s key companies.
LMArena, formerly known as Chatbot Arena, is a web platform that allows users to compare large language models, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini, through anonymous, crowdsourced reviews.
“To measure the real usefulness of AI, we need to put it in the hands of real users. This is exactly what LMArena does,” said Anastasios Angelopoulos, co-founder and CEO of LMArena.
The fundraising was co-led by Felicis and UC Investments (University of California), with participation from Silicon Valley giant Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Laude Ventures.
LMArena said it would use the new capital to operate its platform, expand its technical team and strengthen its research capabilities.
In the previous funding round in May, the company raised $100 million at seed level, led by a16z and UC Investments.
(Reporting by Pragyan Kalita in Bangalore; editing by Vijay Kishore)