Recursive Superintelligence Raises $650M to Build Self-Improving AI

UK-based AI research startup Recursive Superintelligence has emerged from stealth with a $650 million funding round at a $4.65 billion valuation. The company is focused on building AI systems that can autonomously improve themselves in an accelerating loop.

Team and Investors

The company was founded by former leaders from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta AI, Salesforce AI, and Uber AI. CEO Richard Socher previously served as Chief Scientist at Salesforce, and co-founder Yuandong Tian was formerly Director of Meta FAIR. The round was led by GV and Greycroft, with AMD Ventures and NVIDIA also participating.

The Vision: Recursive Self-Improvement

Recursive Superintelligence is developing algorithms that enable AI to autonomously improve itself in a self-sustaining scientific discovery loop. The company targets a public launch of its "Level 1" autonomous training system in mid-2026, and plans to use the funding to secure large-scale compute infrastructure for running these systems.

Recursive self-improvement — where an AI's performance gains feed back into further capability improvements — is a central concept in long-horizon AI safety discussions. The raise comes amid unprecedented AI investment momentum, with AI capturing approximately $242 billion, or 80% of global venture funding, in Q1 2026.

Source: The Next Web, TechCrunch