Flapping Airplanes, an artificial intelligence research laboratory established in late 2025 and based in San Francisco, has secured $1B in fresh funding at a $6B valuation, according to Bloomberg. Index Ventures led the round alongside Lux Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Alphabet's GV and Kleiner Perkins. The valuation marks a fourfold increase from January, when the startup closed a $180M seed round.
The company remains pre-product, focusing instead on research into methods for training artificial intelligence models using significantly less data and computational resources. Co-founder Asher Spector explained the underlying logic to Bloomberg: The basic thesis is demand for AI is going to outpace chip and data supply. He added that extracting an additional 10% of performance from each chip would be tremendously economically valuable.
To achieve these efficiency gains, Flapping Airplanes has been developing its own implementation of the software layer that manages Nvidia's graphics processors. Nvidia itself is among the company's backers. The startup intends to eventually commercialize this technology, offering it to other organizations seeking to reduce their artificial intelligence infrastructure costs.
Flapping Airplanes belongs to a rising category of artificial intelligence ventures that prioritize foundational research over immediate product launches. Similar companies include AMI Labs, founded by Yann LeCun, which raised approximately $1B in March, and Mirendil, which closed a $200M round in June.
Other organizations are pursuing comparable efficiency objectives. Flourish, led by Internet Explorer co-creator Thomas Reardon, was reported in May to be raising around $500M to develop brain-inspired artificial intelligence systems with reduced energy consumption.
The company was founded by Asher Spector, his brother Ben Spector, and Aidan Smith. The name draws from the ornithopter, a historical aircraft concept featuring mechanically flapping wings, which Spector said symbolizes the integration of natural and artificial intelligence capabilities.
Source: The Next Web
