Good morning, AI reporter Sharon Goldman in for Allie Garfinkle, who is taking a well-deserved vacation! <\/p>\n
One familiar name keeps popping up in my inbox lately\u2014but not in the way you might expect. Amid the flood of pitches touting hot new AI startups, I keep seeing Jeff Dean. Yes, that Jeff Dean: Google\u2019s chief scientist and longtime AI leader.<\/p>\n
Best known for cofounding Google Brain and leading the company\u2019s AI research since the early days of deep learning, Dean has also emerged as a prolific angel investor. Over the past two years, he\u2019s quietly backed a whopping 37 AI startups\u2014including Perplexity, DatologyAI, Emerald AI, Workhelix, Roboflow, Profluent Bio, Sakana AI, Latent Labs, P-1, World Labs, and Yutori. Most of his investments are early stage\u2014often before Series A\u2014when companies are still in stealth or just emerging from research labs. For example, Dean was involved in legal AI startup Harvey\u2019s seed round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dean joined Google X in 2011 to explore the then-resurgent field of deep neural networks, went on to lead Google Brain in 2012, and in 2018 was named head of Google\u2019s AI division. Today, he holds the title of chief scientist at both Google Research and Google DeepMind, the combined AI powerhouse formed in 2023.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s no newcomer to angel investing. As early as 2016, he backed Poplar Homes, a tech-enabled property management company acquired by Evernest in early 2025. By 2022, he already had dozens of investments under his belt.<\/p>\n
Over the past two years, though, Dean\u2019s investment activity has taken on a clear shape\u2014reflecting both his deep technical roots and his vision for where AI is heading. He\u2019s backing startups building core AI tooling, particularly those focused on developer platforms, LLM infrastructure, and training efficiency. He\u2019s also betting on a new generation of applications built natively for the LLM era, even if they are outside the Google ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Another clear theme: AI for science. Dean has backed companies applying AI to problems in biology, chemistry, and genomics. It\u2019s a natural extension of the \u201cAI for scientific discovery\u201d thread he championed during his time at both Google Brain and DeepMind\u2014most notably with AlphaFold, DeepMind\u2019s groundbreaking system for predicting protein structures, which has become a cornerstone of modern computational biology.<\/p>\n
Finally, Dean is consistently backing deeply technical founding teams, often with academic pedigrees or open-source credentials. Many are led by former researchers from Google, DeepMind, OpenAI, or top universities. Yutori\u2019s three cofounders, for example, all came from Meta but were also formerly researchers and faculty at Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, some of Dean\u2019s bets are in areas that overlap\u2014or even compete\u2014with Google\u2019s core business. Perplexity, for example, challenges Google Search. Dean, therefore, is surprisingly independent in his investing,\u00a0 even while he continues to hold one of the most senior AI roles inside Google.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been just incredibly active,\u201d said Dylan Reid, a partner at Zetta Venture Partners, which has invested in three bio+AI companies with Dean. \u201cHe\u2019s a real legend in AI, and a sort of AI guru at Google.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That means his name brings cachet: \u201cHaving somebody like Jeff as an investor\u2014an AI visionary on your cap table\u2014I think it helps for sure,\u201d Reid added. \u201cIt\u2019s a sign that somebody in really advanced technology has looked at this and decided it\u2019s interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharon Goldman Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter. Subscribe here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Venture Deals<\/p>\n – Xelix<\/a>, a New York City-based developer of AI software in the accounts payable space, raised $160 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Passion Capital and LocalGlobe.<\/p>\n – Radical AI<\/a>, a New York City-based developer of autonomous labs for materials R&D, raised $55 million in a seed round. RTX Ventures led the round and was joined by Nvidia, Alleycorp, and others.<\/p>\n – Rune Technologies<\/a>, an Arlington, Va.-based developer of AI-enabled predictive software for military logistics, raised $24 million in Series A funding. Human Capital led the round and was joined by Pax VC, Washington Harbour Partners, and existing investors.\u00a0<\/p>\n – Nexxa.ai<\/a>, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company developing AI technology for industrial companies, raised $4.4 million in pre-seed funding. A16z speedrun led the round and was joined by Augment Ventures, Propeller Ventures, Plug and Play, and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n – Crew<\/a>, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based home services platform designed for short-term rental owners, raised $3 million in seed funding. RET Ventures led the round and was joined by Tandem Ventures, Element Ventures, Forever 6, and Convoi Ventures.<\/p>\n – Leadstory<\/a>, a New York City-based news streaming and aggregation platform, raised $2.8 million in seed funding. Checker Media led the round and was joined by American Public Media Group\u2019s Horizon Fund and existing investors.\u00a0<\/p>\n – Chipp<\/a>, a Fargo, N.D.-based no-code AI agent builder, raised $2 million in funding. Homegrown Ventures led the round and was joined by M25, gener8tor 1889, Cambrian Ventures, and Jutta Steiner.<\/p>\n Private Equity<\/p>\n – A consortium of investors led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives agreed to acquire a majority stake in NAVEX<\/a>, an Oswego, Ore.-based developer of SaaS for ethics, risk, and compliance management, from BC Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n – Darktrace, a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo, acquired Mira Security<\/a>, a Harmony, Pa.-based provider of network traffic visibility solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n – LongRange Capital acquired US Synthetic Corporation<\/a>, an Orem, Utah-based provider of highly engineered polycrystalline diamond (PCD) technologies, from ChampionX Corporation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Funds + Funds of Funds<\/p>\n
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