Flapping Airplanes, an AI startup that is only one year old, has secured $1 billion in new funding that values the company at $6 billion, according to Bloomberg. The financing will be made public Wednesday, according to Bloomberg.
Index Ventures and Lux Capital led the round. Sequoia Capital, Alphabet $GOOGL's GV and Kleiner Perkins also took part, and Nvidia $NVDA counts itself among the company's backers, according to Bloomberg. The valuation, counting the fresh capital, is four times what it was when the company last raised money in January.
Flapping Airplanes was founded in late 2025 and is based in San Francisco. It belongs to a group of AI "neolabs," startups that focus on research before launching products and building revenue, according to Bloomberg.
The company is pursuing ways to train AI models using less data and computing power, and to improve the efficiency of the chips that develop and run them, according to Bloomberg, which cited an interview with co-founder Asher Spector. The work arrives amid growing questions about how much money companies are pouring into processors and data centers to build AI.
"The basic thesis is demand for AI is going to outpace chip and data supply," Spector said, according to Bloomberg. "The company that's going to be most successful, and create the most value for the world, is the one that can squeeze the most out of the inputs."
Spector said that with so much money going into infrastructure today, a 10% performance boost for every chip would be worth a great deal economically.
Co-founder Aidan Smith said the company has been building its own version of the software that operates Nvidia's graphics processing units. The software allows Flapping Airplanes to improve the chips' efficiency and deploy them with greater flexibility, he said.
Lux partner Brandon Reeves said that “getting more out of what we have” will matter greatly as AI development moves into “the next frontier.” He said he sees Flapping Airplanes as well positioned to do that.
Spector hopes the company's work will put AI within easier reach of other businesses interested in adopting it. The company has plans to commercialize its technology, he said.
David Cahn, a partner at Sequoia, has been acquainted for years with Spector and with his brother Ben Spector, who is the company's third co-founder. He said the round shows how investors rate the founding team.
"There are so many of these AI labs that you can get lost in the noise," Cahn said, according to Bloomberg. "But this is not a one-of-many company; this is a one-of-one company."