Harmonic, the AI startup co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, has closed a fresh $120 million funding round, lifting its valuation to $1.45 billion. The raise underscores Tenev’s growing influence as a tech leader betting on a new direction for artificial intelligence, one built on mathematical rigour, transparency and verifiable reasoning.
Founded in 2023, Harmonic is attempting to solve a leadership-level challenge facing the AI industry: trust. While most AI models risk “hallucinating,” Harmonic’s flagship system, Aristotle, reasons using formal logic and expresses outputs in a provable programming language. This makes its decision-making traceable, a quality that leaders in high-stakes fields like finance, aerospace and software reliability have been demanding.
Though still pre-revenue, Harmonic’s rapid valuation growth shows that investors view this approach as the future of responsible AI leadership. The new capital will boost computing power, accelerate model development and strengthen its push to build AI that organisations can depend on for mission-critical decisions.
Tenev’s involvement also reflects a shift among global technology leaders, moving from building apps to building the foundations of the next era of intelligence, where safety, logic and accountability matter as much as raw capability.
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