Flapping Airplanes Valuation, Funding & Investors

Flapping Airplanes is valued at $6B as of October 2026.

Last Flapping Airplanes valuation

$6B

Series A · Oct 2026

Last Flapping Airplanes funding round

$1B

Series A · Oct 2026

Cumulative funding Flapping Airplanes raised

$1.2B

across 2 funding rounds

Key investors in Flapping Airplanes

  • Sequoia Capital
  • GV
  • Index Ventures
  • Kleiner Perkins
  • Lux Capital
  • Menlo Ventures

Flapping Airplanes Overview

About Flapping Airplanes

Flapping Airplanes is an AI research lab advancing data-efficient models and novel learning paradigms to reduce reliance on large-scale datasets and compute.


Founded

2025

HQ

United StatesUnited States

Status

Privately held

Customer focus

B2B

Revenue model

Licensing

Valuation

$6B (Oct 2026)

Flapping Airplanes Valuation

Flapping Airplanes is currently valued at $6B, based on its Series A in October 2026. Read the announcement ↗

The $1B round was led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, Seven Stars, Nova Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and 17 other investors.

Flapping Airplanes' valuation has grown 4.0x from $1.5B at its seed round in January 2026 to $6B in October 2026, across 2 priced rounds.

Flapping Airplanes valuation by funding round

Flapping Airplanes valuation by funding round
DateStageValuation
Oct 2026Series A$6B
Jan 2026Seed$1.5B

Flapping Airplanes Funding History

Flapping Airplanes has raised a total of $1.2B across 2 funding rounds.

Flapping Airplanes' first fundraising round was a $180M seed round in January 2026. The most recent completed round was a $1B Series A in October 2026.

Flapping Airplanes funding rounds

Flapping Airplanes funding rounds
DateStageInvestorsRaisedValuationDeal Summary
Oct 2026Series AIndex Ventures (lead); Lux Capital (lead); NVIDIA; Seven Stars; Nova Global; Hummingbird Ventures; Kleiner Perkins; GV; Atreides Management; Meyer Malka; Definition; Duquesne Family Office; HOF Capital; Jump Trading; Sequoia Capital; Henry Kravis; Genesis Ventures; XTX Ventures; Bain Capital Ventures; Fundomo; A*; CRV; Valor Capital Group; Steve Cohen$1B$6BFlapping Airplanes announced on 21 October 2026 that it had raised a USD 1 billion Series A round co-led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital, at a reported valuation of USD 6 billion. Nvidia is among the other investors in the round. The round comes about nine months after the company launched with a USD 180 million seed round from GV, Sequoia and Index, which valued it at USD 1.5 billion, so the valuation has roughly quadrupled. The company says the new capital will fund hiring and its aim of building AI models without ingesting half the internet, getting more out of every GPU and dollar spent. Flapping Airplanes is an AI research lab founded in late 2025 by Ben Spector, Asher Spector and Aidan Smith and based in San Francisco. It is rebuilding frontier model training from first principles, with a focus on data and compute efficiency rather than scale alone.
Jan 2026SeedGV (lead); Index Ventures (lead); Sequoia Capital (lead); Menlo Ventures; Andrej Karpathy; Jeff Dean; Chris Re$180M$1.5BFlapping Airplanes launched in January 2026 with a USD 180 million seed round co-led by GV, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, at a valuation of USD 1.5 billion. Menlo Ventures and individual investors including Andrej Karpathy, Jeff Dean and Chris Re also took part. The founders said the money would go toward research on models that need far less data and compute than current approaches. Flapping Airplanes is an AI research lab based in San Francisco, founded in late 2025 by brothers Ben and Asher Spector and Aidan Smith. Ben Spector previously ran Prod, the incubator behind several AI startups. The lab challenges the prevailing scaling paradigm and aims to improve training data efficiency by a factor of 1,000, drawing on how the human brain learns. At the time of the announcement it had not launched commercial products and was focused on hiring researchers for long-horizon fundamental work. Nine months later it raised a USD 1 billion Series A.

Who has invested in Flapping Airplanes?

28 investors have backed Flapping Airplanes across its funding rounds, including Sequoia Capital, GV, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Lux Capital and Menlo Ventures.

Lead investors include Index Ventures, Lux Capital, GV and Sequoia Capital.


Flapping Airplanes Investors

Investors in Flapping Airplanes by funding rounds participated
InvestorHQRoundsRoleFirst check
Index VenturesUnited KingdomLondon2LeadJan 2026
GVUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadJan 2026
Sequoia CapitalUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadJan 2026
NVIDIAUnited StatesSanta Clara, CA1ParticipantOct 2026
Seven StarsUnited StatesUnited States1ParticipantOct 2026
Menlo VenturesUnited StatesMenlo Park, CA1ParticipantJan 2026
Nova GlobalUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantOct 2026
Hummingbird VenturesBelgiumBrussels1ParticipantOct 2026
Kleiner PerkinsUnited StatesMenlo Park, CA1ParticipantOct 2026
Atreides ManagementUnited StatesBoston, MA1ParticipantOct 2026
Lux CapitalUnited StatesNew York City, NY1LeadOct 2026
Meyer MalkaUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantOct 2026
DefinitionUnited StatesNew York City, NY1ParticipantOct 2026

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Flapping Airplanes Competitors

Flapping Airplanes competitors include listed companies like SenseTime Group and Presight AI, and private ones like Hark, SandboxAQ, DataRobot and Oratomic.

Public and private companies comparable to Flapping Airplanes
CompanyHQStatusRevenueEBITDAValuationRevenue Multiple
HarkUnited StatesUnited StatesPrivate--$6B-
SenseTime GroupChinaChinaPublicly listed$752M($71M)$6B5.3x
SandboxAQUnited StatesPalo AltoPrivate$128M-$5.8B44.9x
DataRobotUnited StatesBoston, MAPrivate$100M-$6.3B63.0x
OratomicUnited StatesLos Angeles, CAPrivate--$5.4B-
Presight AIUAEUAEPublicly listed$825M$214M$5.3B4.8x

Flapping Airplanes Public Comps

Flapping Airplanes is still privately-owned, but its public comps include SenseTime Group, Presight AI, UiPath, Tenable, CorVel, UBtech Robotics, XtalPi, Intsig Information, InSilico Medicine Cayman and Range Intelligent.

Last FYEV/RevenueEV/EBITDA
RevenueEBITDALast FYLTM2027ELast FYLTM2027E
SenseTime Group$752M($71M)6.5x5.3x(69.3x)50.4x
Presight AI$825M$214M5.8x4.8x22.6x18.7x
UiPath$1.6B$70M3.6x3.3x83.9x13.0x
Tenable$999M$31M5.3x4.9x168.1x18.7x
CorVel$959M$175M4.4x-23.8x-
UBtech Robotics$300M($109M)13.3x8.0x(36.5x)(60.0x)
XtalPi$120M$22M21.1x17.8x114.1x(99.8x)
Intsig Information$271M$84M8.9x7.5x28.8x24.3x

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Common questions about Flapping Airplanes

When was Flapping Airplanes founded?Flapping Airplanes was founded in 2025.
Where is Flapping Airplanes headquartered?Flapping Airplanes is headquartered in United States.
Is Flapping Airplanes publicly listed?No, Flapping Airplanes is a private, VC-backed company.
What is Flapping Airplanes' valuation?Flapping Airplanes was last valued at $6B in its Series A in October 2026.
How much funding has Flapping Airplanes raised?Flapping Airplanes has raised $1.2B across 2 funding rounds.
What was Flapping Airplanes' last funding round?Flapping Airplanes' last funding round was a $1B Series A in October 2026, led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital.
Who are Flapping Airplanes' investors?Flapping Airplanes' investors include Index Ventures, GV, Sequoia Capital, NVIDIA, Seven Stars, Menlo Ventures, Nova Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Atreides Management and 18 others.
Which companies are comparable to Flapping Airplanes?Companies comparable to Flapping Airplanes include Hark, SenseTime Group, SandboxAQ, DataRobot, Oratomic and Presight AI.

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