When was Sakana founded?

Sakana was founded in 2023 and become a unicorn in its 1st funding round in 2024.

Where is Sakana located?

Sakana is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

Who is the current CEO of Sakana?

David Ha of Sakana. They have also founded 1 company.

How many employees does Sakana have?

As of Jun 30, 2026, the latest employee count at Sakana is 227.

Is Sakana a funded company?

Sakana is a funded company, having raised a total of $379M across 7 funding rounds to date. The company's 1st funding round was a $30M Seed round, raised on Jan 16, 2024.

How much is Sakana worth?

The latest valuation of Sakana is $2.65B as of Nov 17, 2025.

When was the latest funding round of Sakana?

Sakana's latest funding was a Series B round on Mar 25, 2026, with participation from 1 investor.

Is Sakana a AI Infrastructure company?

The primary sectors of Sakana are AI Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence.

Where does Sakana rank among its competitors?

Sakana ranks 5th amongst 175 active competitors, of which 50 are funded. It stands 9th in terms of total funding among its competitors. The most recent competitor to raise funding was DeepSeek, which secured $4.4B in Jun, 2026.

Who are the top competitors of Sakana?

Sakana's top competitors include OpenAI, Mistral AI and Anthropic. Among them, DeepSeek secured the most recent funding round in June, 2026.

Sakana - 2026 Company Profile, Team, Funding & Competitors

Sakana is a series B company based in Tokyo (Japan), founded in 2023 by Alex Yu, David Ha, Llion Jones and Ren Ito. It operates as a Provider of AI research laboratory services. Sakana has raised $379M in funding from investors like Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital and New Enterprise Associates, with a current valuation of $2.65B. The company has 175 active competitors, including 50 funded and 5 that have exited. Its top competitors include companies like OpenAI, Mistral AI and Anthropic.

Sectors and market segments that Sakana operate in

Sakana serves in the High Tech, Native AI market segments.The primary business model of Sakana are:

Company Details

Sakana AI is a Tokyo-based R&D company founded by former Google AI engineers, David Ha and Llion Jones. Inspired by nature, Sakana AI aims to design collective artificial intelligence models.

Website: sakana.ai
Social
Email ID: *****@sakana.ai

Key Metrics

Founded Year

2023

Location

Tokyo, Japan

Stage

Series B

Total Funding

$379M in 7 rounds

Latest Funding Round

Series B, Mar 25, 2026, Undisclosed

Post Money Valuation

$2.65B as on Nov 17, 2025

Investors

Khosla Ventures & 30 more

Ranked

5^th among 175 active competitors

Employee Count

227 as on Jun 30, 2026

Similar Companies

OpenAI & 283 more

View Sakana's full profile

Sakana has raised a total funding of $379M over 7 rounds. Its first funding round was on Jan 16, 2024. Its latest funding round was a Series B round on Mar 25, 2026 for an undisclosed amount. 1 investor participated in its latest round. Sakana has 29 institutional investors and 2 angel investors.

Here is the list of recent funding rounds of Sakana:

Filter this list

Date of Funding	Funding Amount	Round Name	Post-Money Valuation	Revenue Multiple	Lead Investors	Other Investors
Mar 25, 2026	Undisclosed	Series B	-	-	-	Mitsubishielectric
Feb 25, 2026	Undisclosed	Series B	-	-	-	Citi
Jan 23, 2026	Undisclosed	Series B	-	-	-	Google

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View details of Sakana's funding rounds and investors

The founders of Sakana are Alex Yu, David Ha, Llion Jones and Ren Ito. David Ha is the CEO of Sakana.

Here are the details of Sakana's key team members:

Alex Yu: Co-Founder & COO of Sakana.
David Ha: Co-Founder & CEO of Sakana.
Contact Info: 1 email address
Llion Jones: Co-Founder of Sakana.
Contact Info: 1 email address
Ren Ito: Co-Founder & Chairman of Sakana.
Contact Info: 1 email address

View details of Sakana's Founder profiles and Board Members

Sakana's employee count trend

Sakana has 227 employees as of Jun 26. Here is Sakana's employee count trend over the years:

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Top competitors of Sakana include OpenAI, Mistral AI and Anthropic. Here is the list of Top 10 competitors of Sakana, ranked by Tracxn score:

Rank	Company Details	Short Description	Total Funding	Investors	Tracxn Score
1st	OpenAI 2015, San Francisco (United States), Series F	Artificial intelligence research and development platform offering advanced language models	$180B	SoftBank Group, Microsoft & 89 others	89/100
2nd	Mistral AI 2023, Paris (France), Series C	Provider of customizable, open-source artificial intelligence models and solutions for various applications	$3.05B	Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz ... & 51 others	83/100
3rd	Anthropic 2021, San Francisco (United States), Series H	Provider of AI safety and research company	$132B	GIC, Amazon & 116 others	83/100
4th	Cohere 2019, Toronto (Canada), Series D	Developer of enterprise AI platform and multilingual language and retrieval models	$1.54B	Inovia Capital, Sapphire Ventures & 35 others	78/100
5th	Sakana 2023, Tokyo (Japan), Series B	Provider of AI research laboratory services	$379M	Citi, Nomura & 29 others	71/100
6th	Krutrim 2023, Bengaluru (India), Series B	Provider of AI cloud infrastructure, foundational models, and applications	$74.9M	Sarin Family India, Z47 & 2 others	68/100
7th	DeepSeek 2023, Hangzhou (China), Series A	Open source based AI assistant for enterprises	$4.4B	NetEase Games, Contemporary Amperex Technology ... & 3 others	67/100
8th	Aleph Alpha 2019, Heidelberg (Germany), Acquired	Provider of an AI-enabled text and image analytics platform	$533M	Gruppe, Sapphire Ventures & 23 others	66/100
9th	AI21 Labs 2017, Tel Aviv (Israel), Series D	Platform offering AI focused writing and reading assistants	$636M	Pitango, Walden Catalyst & 14 others	66/100
10th	ReflectionAI 2024, Brooklyn (United States), Series B	Developer of autonomous coding systems	$2.13B	CRV, Lightspeed Venture Partners & 20 others	66/100