Sakana AI
Funding History
| Series B · 11/2025 | $2.6B |
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Overview
Sakana AI is a Tokyo-based frontier AI research company founded in July 2023 by David Ha, Llion Jones, and Ren Ito, all former Google researchers. The company's name derives from the Japanese word for fish, reflecting its research focus on the evolution and collective intelligence of AI systems, likened to a school of fish forming a coherent entity from simple rules.
The company builds AI models optimized for the Japanese language and culture, designed to perform well even with smaller datasets, and targets enterprise use cases in finance, industrial, manufacturing, and government sectors. Its product lineup includes the Fugu and Namazu language models, a research-report tool called Marlin Analyst, and a translation service called Sakana Translate.
Sakana AI has drawn backing from a mix of global venture firms and major Japanese financial institutions, reflecting both its research ambitions and its strategic importance to Japan's domestic AI industry. By its November 2025 Series B round, the company was valued at $2.65 billion, having roughly tripled its valuation in just over a year.
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