Index Ventures has raised more than $2 billion for artificial intelligence (AI) projects.
The venture capital (VC) firm announced the fund on Wednesday (July 10) and said it would split the $2.3 billion it raised into two funds, with $800 million earmarked for early-stage startups and the rest for later-stage companies.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be investing,” Jan Hammer, a partner at Index, told the Financial Times.
Hammer added that this was due to a technological “platform shift” away from AI, which he likened to the emergence of the PC, smartphone and cloud computing. “The last year or two has been marked by the ubiquity of AI.”
Marine Migneau, another partner at Index, said more than half of the firm’s recent investment capital has been in AI projects. The firm has also invested in Mistral, Europe’s most valuable AI startup, Scale AI, which is building infrastructure for AI model companies, and DeepL, which provides AI writing and translation services to businesses.
Index has studied the impact of AI in a wide range of fields, from accounting to molecular research to data center optimization, Mignon said.
“AI is a transformative trend for many sectors of the economy,” he told the FT.
Last week, it was reported that AI helped drive U.S. venture funding to its highest quarterly total in two years.
At the same time, a growing number of technology companies have begun to warn investors about the risks associated with AI.
As Bloomberg News reported last week, several major tech companies have been “quietly” issuing AI-related warnings through the “risk factors” sections of their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
For example, Meta has warned that it could face backlash if its AI is used to spread misinformation during elections, Microsoft has said it will face copyright claims related to its AI training and deliverables, and Google has warned that it will face financial damages if its AI tools are used to harm human rights or other social issues.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the Fed is studying the effects of generative AI on productivity, inflation and the labor market.
Powell said it was too early to tell whether the technology would eliminate jobs, add existing jobs or create new ones.
