Google yesterday (12 May) launched an AI Futures Fund to invest in and collaborate with ambitious startups, with Harvey revealed to be one of the early participants. Harvey has raised millions of dollars in funding and its $100m Series C last year was led by GV (Google Ventures), but the fund announced this week is a brand new initiative led by fund co-founder and director John Silber. Silber joined Google this month from YouTube.
The program will give startups at various growth stages early access to Google DeepMind’s latest AI models as well as resources, technical expertise and equity funding to accelerate their progress.
Silber said in a post announcing the fund that startups working with the new fund will be able to get hands on support from researchers, engineers, product managers, designers and go-to-market specialists from Google DeepMind and Google Labs. The program provides Cloud credits and dedicated technical support from Google’s Cloud experts to help build, train and scale AI products.
Other early participants include meme-making platform Viggle, and Rooms, where users create, play and share interactive 3D spaces. The fund is open to companies ‘anywhere Gemini is available’.
Startups who are keen to work with the AI Futures Fund can apply here.
Commenting on LinkedIn, Silber said: If you’re working on something interesting — or know someone who is — I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me your pitch.”
A spokesperson for Google told Legal IT Insider: “The AI Futures Fund doesn’t follow a batch or cohort model. Instead, we consider opportunities on a rolling basis—there’s no fixed application window or deadline. When we come across companies that align with the fund’s thesis, we may choose to invest.”
They added: “We look for ambitious teams across all stages, from early-stage ideas to scaling ventures, that are building the future with AI and creating transformative 0-to-1 products built upon Google’s latest AI technologies, including Gemini models.”