Humans& company profile: valuation, funding & revenue

This Humans& company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Humans& works in AI, with a focus on foundation models. It was founded in 2025 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. Its latest valuation on record is US$4.48 billion (January 2026). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.

Revenue

Funding history

Humans& timeline

Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.

• 2025 — Humans& is founded in San Francisco by Eric Zelikman (CEO), Andi Peng, Georges Harik, Yuchen He and Noah Goodman.
• Jan 2026 — Seed: US$480M, valuing the company at US$4.48B. Investors: SV Angel and Georges Harik (leads); Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV, Emerson Collective.

Investors

Overview

Humans& (pronounced "humans and") is an artificial intelligence research company that says it wants to build AI that works with people rather than replacing them. Its founders describe a "human-centric" approach: models and products designed to help people collaborate, coordinate and make decisions together, and to understand what users actually want over long periods of interaction. The company was formed in 2025 by researchers who previously worked at leading AI organisations, including Anthropic, xAI and Google, according to TechCrunch.

In January 2026 Humans& announced a US$480 million seed round at a US$4.48 billion valuation, one of the largest seed rounds ever raised. The round was led by SV Angel and co-founder Georges Harik, who was Google's seventh employee, with participation from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV and Emerson Collective, TechCrunch reported. Its chief executive is Eric Zelikman, a former xAI researcher. The other co-founders are Andi Peng, who worked on reinforcement learning and post-training at Anthropic; Georges Harik; Yuchen He, also formerly of xAI; and Noah Goodman, a Stanford professor of psychology and computer science.

What Humans& is building

• Foundation models: AI systems trained with a focus on long-term collaboration and understanding users' goals.
• Collaboration products: tools that help groups of people and AI work together, rather than one-person chat interfaces.
• Memory and personalisation: systems that learn from ongoing interaction while respecting user control.
• Research: work on reinforcement learning, reasoning and methods to align AI with human intentions.

The company had not launched a commercial product at the time of its seed round, so details remain limited.

Funding

The US$480 million seed round, announced in January 2026, valued Humans& at US$4.48 billion, according to TechCrunch. It was led by SV Angel, the angel fund founded by Ron Conway, and co-founder Georges Harik. Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, Alphabet's GV and Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective also invested. Seed rounds of this size were almost unheard of before 2024 but have become more common for AI labs founded by prominent researchers, because training competitive models requires large amounts of computing power from the start.

Business model

Humans& has not disclosed its business model. Like other AI labs, it could sell access to its models through APIs, offer subscription products to consumers and businesses, or license technology. Its emphasis on collaboration suggests workplace and team products may be a priority.

Competition

Humans& competes with established AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, and with newer labs founded by well-known researchers, including Thinking Machines Lab, Safe Superintelligence, Reflection AI and AMI Labs. It also competes for talent, which is scarce and expensive. Its differentiation rests on its human-centric mission and its team.

Humans& at a glance

Humans& is a San Francisco AI research company founded in 2025 by alumni of Anthropic, xAI and Google, led by chief executive Eric Zelikman. It aims to build AI that helps people collaborate. It raised a US$480 million seed round at a US$4.48 billion valuation in January 2026, led by SV Angel and co-founder Georges Harik, with Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV and Emerson Collective.

Timeline

• 2025: founded by researchers from leading AI labs.
• January 2026: announces a US$480 million seed round at US$4.48 billion.

Why mega seed rounds happen in AI

A traditional startup seed round funds a small team to build a first product, typically a few million dollars. AI labs aiming to train frontier models face a different reality: they need thousands of advanced chips, top researchers whose pay packages can be very large, and data. Investors are willing to provide hundreds of millions of dollars at the seed stage when founders have strong track records, because the potential prize is large and the window to compete may be short. These rounds also carry high risk: the company may need to raise much more before generating revenue, and competition from established labs is intense.

What "human-centric" AI means

Most AI products today are designed around a single user giving instructions to a model. Humans& argues that much valuable work involves groups of people coordinating over time, such as teams planning projects, families organising activities or communities making decisions. AI that understands each person's preferences, remembers context and helps groups reach agreement could be more useful than AI that simply completes tasks. The company has also framed its approach as keeping humans in control, an idea that resonates with concerns about AI replacing jobs.

The talent market

Experienced AI researchers are among the most sought-after workers in technology. Large companies have offered pay packages worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to top researchers. New labs compete by offering equity, mission and the chance to build from scratch. A large seed round lets Humans& compete for talent and compute without immediately needing revenue.

Who funds Humans&

Humans&'s investors include SV Angel and Georges Harik, which led the seed round, along with Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV and Emerson Collective.

Valuation context

A valuation of US$4.48 billion before launching a product reflects investors' willingness to back prominent researchers early. Our guides to new AI labs and the most valuable AI startups compare Humans& with peers.

Risks

• No product yet: its commercial strategy remains unproven.
• Capital needs: training competitive models may require much more funding.
• Competition: established labs have more data, compute and users.
• Talent retention: rivals may recruit its researchers.

Questions to ask as it launches

• What products will it launch first, and for whom?
• Will it train its own frontier models or build on others' models?
• How will it handle privacy for collaboration and memory features?
• How much more capital will it need to compete?

How new AI labs try to differentiate

New labs cannot easily outspend OpenAI, Google or Anthropic, so they look for different angles. Some focus on a particular capability, such as reasoning, coding or scientific discovery. Others emphasise a different research approach, such as world models or new hardware. Some stress safety or openness. Humans& has chosen a focus on collaboration and human agency. Whether this produces distinct products, rather than just a distinct message, will become clear as the company releases its work. Historically, startups have succeeded against incumbents when they found a use case the incumbents underserved and built products that users preferred.

What to watch

Watch for first product releases, research publications, further fundraising and key hires.

Takeaways

Businesses may see new tools for team collaboration with AI. Founders can see how mission and team can attract very large early capital. Investors should weigh the team's pedigree against the lack of a product.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. TechCrunch