AI NewsHow a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product

How a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product

8:43 PM IST · July 16, 2026

Andrew Dai left Google DeepMind knowing visual AI was the frontier he wanted to stake his claim in. He pulled off a whirlwind fundraise that resulted in a more aggressive valuation-to-capital ratio thanThinking Machines, which raised one of the largest rounds in U.S. history. In this episode ofBuild Mode,host and Startup Battlefield lead Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Andrew Dai, founder and CEO ofElorianand former Google DeepMind researcher, to discuss how his company raised a $55 million seed round at a $300 million valuation just months after leaving Google. Drawing on more than a decade spent helping build some of the world’s most influential AI systems, including research that later informed the development of ChatGPT, Andrew explains why he believes visual AI is one of the next major frontiers in artificial intelligence. “You have models that are doing really great at math, really great at new physics ideas, and of course coding is very popular now … But one area where progress has been extremely uneven is visual understanding and visual reasoning,” said Dai. “At Elorian, we want to build models that will advance us toward visual AGI.” Andrew walks through the fundraising process from the founder’s perspective, including how he refined a highly technical vision into a compelling story investors could understand. He explains why he prioritized strategic partners like Nvidia and Menlo Ventures over even higher valuation offers, and how choosing investors who understood the realities of building frontier AI proved more valuable than simply maximizing his company’s price tag. The conversation also offers practical lessons for founders navigating today’s rapidly evolving AI landscape. Andrew shares how startups can communicate complex technical ideas without relying on jargon, why speed has become one of the biggest competitive advantages in AI, and what it takes to recruit world-class researchers away from Big Tech. Loading the player… This season on Build Mode, we’re diving into all aspects of fundraising with experts who have firsthand experience raising massive pre-seed rounds, writing the big checks, bootstrapping, going public, and navigating the unexpected market circumstances that can change everything. Subscribe to Build Mode on⁠Apple Podcasts⁠,⁠Spotify⁠, or⁠wherever you like to listen⁠. And watch the full videos on⁠YouTube⁠. New episodes of ⁠Build Mode⁠drop every Thursday.