Human-centric & personal AI · Palo Alto, US · founded 2026
River AI: who founded it, who funds it
River AI is a Palo Alto personal AI lab founded in 2026 by Igor Babuschkin, Aaron Rogers, Dmytro Soboliev and Ievgen Soboliev, who came from xAI. What it is building: personal AI you own and train: an end-to-end stack with an RL training API and on-device hardware. It has raised $1.1B in disclosed rounds, most recently a Seed + Series A of $1.1B in August 2026, led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC. It sells access through an API.
- Founders
- Igor Babuschkin (ex-xAI), Aaron Rogers, Dmytro Soboliev, Ievgen Soboliev
- Founders from
- ex-xAI
- Location
- Palo Alto, US (North America)
- Valuation
- $5B estimate, per source
- Raised
- $1.1B disclosed
- Investors
- General Catalyst lead, AMP PBC lead, Nvidia, AMD, Y Combinator, Temasek
- What ships
- API
Rounds
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 11, 2026 | Seed + Series A | $1.1B | · | General Catalyst, AMP PBC | techcrunch.com |
Sources
- techstartups techstartups.com
News
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Oct 7, 2026
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Sep 9, 2026
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Aug 11, 2026
+4 more coverage
- Reuters XAI co-founder's startup River AI raises $1.1 billion to expand custom AI tools
- Business Wire River AI Raises $1.1B Led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC to Build Open AI Stack
- Fenwick & West LLP Fenwick Represents River AI in $1.1B Funding
- Tech Funding News xAI co-founder raises $1.1B for River AI to build an open AI stack
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Jul 21, 2026
Investors who back other labs here
- Nvidia also: Safe Superintelligence, Reflection AI, Skild AI, Poolside
- AMD also: Thinking Machines Lab, Hark, World Labs, Recursive Superintelligence
- General Catalyst also: Skild AI, General Intuition, Symbolica