Tokyo-Based Sakana AI Raises $135 Mn in Series B to Build Sustainable, Nature-Inspired AI

Tokyo — Sakana AI, an AI research firm focused on efficient, nature-inspired foundational models, has announced a major Series B funding round of ¥20 billion (approximately $135 million) to accelerate its mission.

Founded in July 2023, Sakana AI is building its future around resource-efficient AI development inspired by evolution and collective intelligence.

Rather than training massive new models from scratch, the company develops systems that combine existing open-source models, enabling them to self-improve using tree-search techniques and evolutionary strategies.

Its research has already produced several innovations, including the Darwin Gödel Machine (a self-improving architecture), an Evolutionary Model Merge method to fuse multiple models, and a novel architecture called the Continuous Thought Machine, inspired by temporal dynamics in the brain. Sakana AI also automates scientific workflows: its “AI Scientist” multi-agent system can generate hypotheses, run experiments, and even write research papers.

On the practical side, Sakana is partnering with major Japanese enterprises like MUFG and Daiwa Securities to apply its AI in finance, and is planning to expand into defense, intelligence, and manufacturing.

The fresh capital will fund three key priorities, according to Sakana:

• R&D, to develop more efficient models and self-evolving AI systems;
• Applied AI, to scale deployments in finance, defense, and industry;
• Ecosystem building, including partnerships, strategic investments, and M&A.

Notable backers in this round include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Khosla Ventures, Factorial, Macquarie Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Lux Capital, In-Q-Tel (IQT), and MPower Partners.

Sakana’s leadership includes CEO David Ha, formerly of Google Brain Japan, and Llion Jones, co-author of the seminal “Attention Is All You Need” Transformer paper.

With this funding, Sakana says it will deepen its frontier AI research, deliver applied AI for Japan’s key sectors, and contribute to building a sovereign AI ecosystem tailored to Japan’s societal and industrial needs.