EquiLibre Technologies reaches $500M valuation after Series A

In short: A Prague-based AI company called EquiLibre Technologies raised a Series A round and is now valued at more than $500 million.

What happened

EquiLibre Technologies was founded by three former researchers from DeepMind, a well known AI lab. The founders previously worked on DeepStack, an AI system that beat professional players at no-limit poker.

According to TechCrunch, EquiLibre has now raised an undisclosed Series A funding round led by venture firm Creandum. Creandum did not share the investment amount, but a partner told TechCrunch it was the largest single check the firm has ever written into one company.

EquiLibre is applying the same type of training method it used for poker to financial trading. The method is called reinforcement learning, which is a way to train software by rewarding it when it makes good choices, like training a dog with treats. EquiLibre’s CEO, Martin Schmid, told TechCrunch that in markets the “score” is straightforward: how much money the system makes.

The company says its trading software is being used with Tower Research Capital, a quantitative trading firm that relies heavily on math and automation. EquiLibre claims its systems have traded billions of dollars in daily volume in major US stock markets and have had “zero negative months since inception,” meaning each month ended with gains overall.

Why it matters

This is another sign that investor money is moving toward AI tools built for high-stakes business use, not just chatbots and image makers. If EquiLibre’s claims hold up over time, it could encourage more hedge funds to rely on self-learning trading systems, which may affect how markets behave.

Source: TechCrunch AI