US EditionLMArena Secures $100M in Seed Funding to Bring Scientific Rigor to AI Reliability
- LMArena, an AI benchmarking startup co-founded by Ion Stoica and based in the US, announced in May 2025 that it has raised $100 million in an initial funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and UC Investments.
- The funding followed LMArena’s April 2025 spin-out from a UC Berkeley project aimed at creating a neutral, crowdsourced platform for AI model evaluation amid growing demand for reliable benchmarks.
- LMArena facilitates real-world head-to-head comparisons of over 400 AI models through user votes, with more than 3 million votes cast and about a million monthly visitors largely from tech industries.
- Ion Stoica emphasized that evaluations have gained greater significance since the company's inception, and LMArena’s $600 million valuation demonstrates strong investor trust in its rigorous and transparent methodology.
- LMArena plans to use the funding to expand its platform, hire staff, cover compute costs, and develop new evaluation tools, positioning itself as a foundational infrastructure for AI reliability.
14 Articles
14 Articles
East Bay Times
siliconvalley.comChatbot Arena group goes from academic project at UC Berkeley to $600 million startup
By Rachel Metz and Katie Roof, Bloomberg Chatbot Arena started as an academic project, where researchers and students at the University of California at Berkeley worked to evaluate the capacity of artificial intelligence tools. Now, the group has spun out into a new company, called LMArena, that’s raised $100 million in seed funding from a slate of A-list investors. Andreessen Horowitz and UC Investments — which manages an investment portfolio f…
LM Arena, the organization behind popular AI leaderboards, lands $100M
LM Arena, a crowdsourced benchmarking project major AI labs rely on to test and market their AI models, has raised $100 million in a seed funding round that values the organization at $600 million, according to Bloomberg.
The Prescott Times
LMArena Secures $100M in Seed Funding to Bring Scientific Rigor to AI Reliability
SAN FRANCISCO, May 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- LMArena, the open community platform for evaluating the best AI models, has secured $100 million in seed funding led by a16z and UC Investments (University of California) with participation from Lightspeed, Laude Ventures,…
LMArena Secures $100M in Seed to Bring Scientific Rigor to AI Reliability - AI-Tech Park
LMArena, the open community platform for evaluating the best AI models, has secured $100 million in seed funding led by a16z and UC Investments (University of California) with participation from Lightspeed, Laude Ventures, Felicis, Kleiner Perkins and The House Fund. The funding coincides with the relaunch of LMArena happening next week—a faster, sharper, fully rebuilt platform designed to make AI evaluation more rigorous, transparent, and human…
LMArena Raises $100M to Rethink How the World Measures AI Performance
LMArena just locked in $100 million in seed funding to rebuild how we judge artificial intelligence. The round was led by a16z and UC Investments, with Lightspeed, Laude Ventures, Felicis, Kleiner Perkins, and The House Fund all in the mix. The funding arrives right before the relaunch of LMArena’s platform next week—a cleaner, faster, mobile-first version of its already widely used AI evaluation hub.Over 3 million votes have been cast on more t…
LMArena Secures $100Million in Seed Funding to Bring Scientific Rigor to AI Reliability
LMArena, the open community platform for evaluating the best AI models, has secured $100 million in seed funding led by a16z and UC Investments (University of California) with participation from Lightspeed, Laude Ventures, Felicis, Kleiner Perkins and The House Fund. The funding coincides with the relaunch of LMArena happening next week—a faster, sharper, fully rebuilt platform designed to make AI evaluation more rigorous, transparent, and human…
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