AI leaderboard startup Arena raises 200 million dollars at 3.1 billion valuation

Arena, the company behind the LMArena leaderboard, announced on Thursday that it raised a 200 million dollar Series B funding round at a 3.1 billion dollar valuation, TechCrunch reported. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures co-led the investment round. The company reached a 100 million dollar annualized run-rate revenue in June. [1][2]

The funding round included participation from several existing and new investors, according to TechCrunch. These investors include Salesforce Ventures, 01 Advisors, Dell Technologies Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, and Felicis. [1][2]

Arena provides a public web-based platform that evaluates large language models by presenting anonymous model responses to user prompts. Users vote on which model gave the better response before the identities of the models are revealed. Users can also select specific models directly to test them. TechCrunch reported that the company is currently expanding to measure models on alignment issues, such as lying. [1][2][3]

The startup originated in 2023 as a research project at the University of California, Berkeley to crowdsource rankings of artificial intelligence models, TechCrunch reported. Arena previously raised a 150 million dollar Series A round in January, nearly doubling its valuation over a 10-month span. [1][2]