Ashurst and Cooley steer $1.1bn record fundraise for British AI startup

Ashurst and Cooley acted on the $1.1 billion seed financing of London-based Ineffable Intelligence, understood to be the largest-ever seed round in Europe.

Ashurst acted on investor-side mandates, advising Google on its investment and the British Business Bank and UK Sovereign AI Fund on their co-investment, while Cooley advised Ineffable Intelligence on the fundraising.

The round was led by heavyweight investors Sequoia and Lightspeed Venture Partners, and included NVIDIA and Index Ventures.

The startup

Ineffable Intelligence, valued at $5.1 billion, was founded by former Google DeepMind researcher David Silver and is focused on developing “superlearner” AI agents that can learn for themselves, instead of being trained only on existing data.

The company is focused on designing systems capable of learning independently through experience using reinforcement learning, distinctly different from traditional large language models.

UK backing

The UK government participated in the round through its Sovereign AI initiative, a £500 million fund launched earlier this month to support homegrown AI startups.

In a government statement, the fund said Ineffable’s technology will “open the door to breakthroughs in science, medicine, engineering and beyond”.

Science and technology secretary Liz Kendall said “Sovereign AI is our bet on Britain,” adding that the investment will “ensure that the UK isn’t just an AI taker, but an AI maker”.

Ashurst also recently acted for startup accelerator Entrepreneurs First on its $200 million fundraising as the London-founded programme looks to expand its backing of early-stage founders.

Advising

Ashurst advised Google on its investment led by London tech M&A partner Chris Grey. The firm also advised the British Business Bank and the UK’s Sovereign AI Fund on their co-investment, led by London corporate partner Jacob Gold.

Cooley advised Ineffable Intelligence on the fundraising, led by Eric Davison, a London partner in the UK emerging companies and venture capital practice.