{
  "id": 9576248,
  "title": "DeepMind Alumni Draw Investors Beyond Large Language Models",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/deepmind-alumni-draw-investors-beyond-large-language-models",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-24T15:20:14.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PYMNTS",
    "slug": "pymnts",
    "url": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/deepmind-alumni-draw-investors-beyond-large-language-models/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "DeepMind alumni are attracting significant investment from venture capitalists for startups focused on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) beyond large language models. Thore Graepel, a former researcher behind Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program, is seeking tens of millions of dollars for a new company called Metis Reasoning. AlphaGo, a program that defeated a world Go champion in 2016, represented a breakthrough in AI by learning from its own games and planning moves ahead. Metis Reasoning aims to create AI capable of responding to novel problems and selecting actions, with applications in robotics, science, and engineering. The startup's technology builds upon AlphaGo-style reasoning, enabling machines to plan and act under uncertainty. Similar AI ventures, such as Ineffable Intelligence and Emulate, have also garnered substantial funding. Ineffable Intelligence raised $1.1 billion at a $5.1 billion valuation in April, led by Sequoia and Lightspeed, while Emulate raised $700 million at a $3.7 billion valuation in a tranched round. These startups are part of a trend of AI spin-offs from DeepMind, reflecting growing investor confidence and the need to attract top talent through competitive valuations.",
  "summary": "One of the researchers behind AlphaGo is seeking tens of millions of dollars from a small initial group of backers for a new startup called Metis Reasoning, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Sept. 24). AlphaGo is the Google DeepMind program that beat a world champion at the board game Go in 2016 by learning from millions of […] The post DeepMind Alumni Draw Investors Beyond Large Language Models…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}