An alumnus of Google’s artificial intelligence research unit DeepMind has created a new venture fund Mythos Ventures.
This venture fund will provide financial resources to startups that operate in the machine intelligence industry. The founder of Mythos is Vishal Maini, an early researcher at DeepMind. The venture fund has already managed to raise funds in the amount of $14 million. This amount was provided by more than 40 investors.
Vishal Maini is one of dozens of former Google employees who have money, experience, and desire to develop artificial intelligence technologies within the framework of entrepreneurial activity. Also, these people are ready to be investors.
Vishal Maini, during his first interview, the main topic of which was the venture fund, said that he thought about the issues of space exploration, discussed the possible launch of initiatives to counter climate change and mitigate the consequences of this process, analyzed the ability to achieve results in solving problems of longevity and health, but returned to AI, which is a transformational technology for all of the above. A former DeepMind researcher described artificial intelligence as a sci-fi future that humanity has always dreamed of. He also said that at the current stage of technological progress, people are in the driver’s seat.
Last year, public companies and venture investors sent multibillion-dollar funding to startups that operate in the sphere of artificial intelligence. This economic foundation has provided a kind of impetus for the growth of the new-generation technology industry. At the same time, the intensive development of AI configurations and various tools based on it has increased concerns about the lack of sufficient supervision over the digital mind, whose abilities are becoming more and more impressive.
Vishal Maini stated that the development of artificial intelligence, which is safe and consistent with the dogma of ethical correctness, will be his priority as an investor. He also noted that the corresponding ideological basis was a guideline for him during his work at DeepMind.
Mythos will invest in startups that create what Vishal Maini has designated as prosocial technologies. Also, the founder of the venture fund announced his intention to interact with those firms at the initial stage of existence that intend to transform the traditional economic paradigm with the help of AI and have long-term plans related to the global future of machine intelligence.
Vishal Maini said that Mythos, based in San Francisco, will write checks in the amount of $100,000 to $1 million dollars. The Foundation has already supported one stealth company and three startups, including the robotic stone carving factory Monumental Labs, the real estate valuation firm ValueBase, and the research assistant Elicit.
According to Vishal Maini, the first fundraising experience was difficult, despite his experience and the broad enthusiasm of the market for everything related to artificial intelligence. He also stated that the current period is not the most favorable for raising investments.
The investors of the first Mythos fund are the venture capital company Metaplanet Holdings, Delphi Ventures, Coin Operated Group, and several individuals who focus on AI.
As we have reported earlier, Venture Investor 500 Global Raises $143 Million.
