"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 for the University of California — led the fundraising, which the company plans to announce Wednesday. The deal includes backing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, among others, the company said.
The round values LMArena at $600 million, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named in order to discuss private conversations. This gives the company, the formation of which was announced in April, a substantial valuation despite being less than two months old. LMArena declined to comment on its valuation.
“We believe evaluations are more important now than when we started,” said Ion Stoica, LMArena co-founder and chairman. Stoica, a UC Berkeley professor, is also the co-founder of tech companies such as Databricks Inc. and Anyscale Inc.
LMArena’s website allows people to test a slew of cutting-edge AI models and see how they perform head to head. Users then vote for the ones they prefer on the site’s leaderboards, which are closely watched by the tech community."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-21/lmarena-goes-from-academic-project-to-600-million-startup
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