Japan's Sakana AI by Google alums to become unicorn in under a year

TOKYO -- Sakana AI, a startup cofounded by former Google researchers, is planning a funding round as early as this month that would value it at over $1 billion, Nikkei has learned, achieving the fastest jump to unicorn status by a Japanese company.

The company is in talks with U.S. venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital to raise $125 million at a valuation of more than $1.1 billion, benefiting from the boom in generative artificial intelligence.