Dai-ichi Life backs Sakana AI

Japanese IT firm Sakana AI has raised $70 million in a Series A funding round that included Japanese banking groups such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Financial Group, as well as companies from various industries, such as NEC, SBI Group, Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Itochu Group, KDDI, Fujitsu, and Nomura Holdings.

Founded in 2023, Sakana AI specializes in developing an AI model that can generate text, images, video, code, and multimedia, enabling clients to collaborate on research and development of generative AI.

“AI will become a game changer that will bring about major changes to the business models of many companies as it permeates our lives and the services we use. Sakana AI is a startup company that is creating new value from Japan to the world with unprecedented ideas, such as “Evolutionary Model Merge,” which combines a wide range of models with diverse capabilities to build a new foundation model, and “AI Scientist,” the first attempt to fully automate the entire scientific research process. In its medium-term management plan announced in April this year, MUFG set the goal of realizing data-driven management and improving customer value and productivity by strengthening its AI and data infrastructure. We expect that MUFG’s AI strategy will become even more sophisticated by utilizing Sakana AI’s high technical capabilities and innovative model development methods.” – Hiroki Kamezawa, Director, Representative Executive Officer, President and Group CEO, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.