AI21 Labs raises $155 million in Series C, led by Walden Catalyst, Google, and Nvidia

AI21 Labs also sells access to the reading and writing AI assistant, Wordtune.

Tel Aviv-based AI startup AI21 Labs has raised $155 million in a Series C round led by Walden Catalyst and featuring participation from Google and Nvidia, among others. The latest capital brings the company's total raised to $283m and values it at $1.4bn. AI21 Labs specializes in text-generating AI tools, including its flagship offering, AI21 Studio, which is a developer platform allowing customers to build custom-based business apps. AI21 Labs also sells access to the reading and writing AI assistant, Wordtune. The platform's AI models can be tailored to specific use cases, including summarization, paraphrasing, and grammar and spelling correction. The funds will be used to accelerate further R&D, with a focus on developing superior AI systems that are capable of reasoning across many domains, according to co-CEO Yoav Shoham.

He also wants to develop more partnerships across the tech ecosystem and add roles in research and business development to the firm's growing headcount. AI21 Labs previously came out of stealth mode in October 2020 with the launch of Wordtune. Despite facing stiff competition in the text-generating AI space from established market players such as Microsoft, Google, and AWS and start-ups like DeepAI, Cohere, and Anthropic, AI21 Labs CEO Yoav Shoham believes the firm's technology is superior because the company's AI models are specialized for generative AI use-cases, including summarization, paraphrasing, and grammar and spelling correction.