Infection AI, the machine learning startup led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and founding DeepMind member Mustafa Suleyman, has procured US$ 225 million in equity financing, as per a filing of the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission. The source of the capital is not clear, Inflection did not respond to the request for more details. However, the massive round indicates strong investor confidence in Suleyman, the company’s CEO.
Palo Alto, California-based Inflection has kept a low profile to date, allowing few interviews to the media. However, in a CNBC profile from January, Suleyman mentioned wanting to offer products that eradicate the need for people to simplify their thoughts to interact with machines, with the goal being to leverage AI to assist humans “talk” to computers.
The idea of translating human interactions into machine language dates decades back. But unfortunately, the finest chatbots and voice assistants have not met their promise. However, Suleyman and Hoffman are vouching that coming modernizations in AI can make an intuitive human-computer interface possible in the coming five years.
“Even at the bigger tech companies, there’s a relatively small number of people building these [AI] models. So oneSo one of the advantages of doing this in a startup is that we can go much faster and be more dynamic,” Suleyman told CNBC.
A cloud surrounds Inflection following reports that Suleyman bullied staff members at Google. He was working after being on administrative leave at DeepMind for the controversy surrounding some of its projects. Google commenced an investigation into his behavior at the time, reports Wall Street Journal; however, it never exposed its findings public.