8h ago

Former DeepMind researchers launch Inherent with $50 million to build recursively self-improving AI agents for science

Index and Radical Ventures co-led the seed round.

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A team of former DeepMind researchers just raised $50M to build an AI lab built around recursive self-improvement at the level of the whole research organization, not only a single model. Index and Radical co-led, NVIDIA's venture arm is in, and angels like Dwarkesh Patel, Thomas Wolf and Max Jaderberg are on the cap table. The founders have the track record to back it up. Louis Kirsch comes out of the Schmidhuber lineage on self-improving systems. Edward Hughes has argued that open-endedness is essential for artificial superhuman intelligence. Tantum Collins worked on AI policy in the Biden White House. Their idea is simple and big at the same time. Today's models are great at answering questions, but real discovery also depends on knowing which questions are worth asking. Inherent wants AI that works right next to humans inside that loop, as a collaborator and not only a tool. They call it living within the experiment. They also set it up as a Public Benefit Corporation, so the mission is written into the company from day one. This is the direction a lot of us have been hoping for, and one of the more credible attempts at recursive self-improvement I've seen so far. Really excited for it.

4:06 AM · May 30, 2026 View on X

Very cool new announcement from one of the best in the biz

Tantum CollinsTantum Collins@tantumscollins

Thrilled to announce Inherent, which I’ve co-founded with @kallyaleksiev, @edwardfhughes, and @LouisKirschAI. We are building a lab that recursively self-improves to discover new knowledge. Website: http://inherentlabs.ai. We're hiring: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/inherent.

10:11 PM · May 28, 2026 · 13.9K Views
5:30 PM · May 30, 2026 · 471 Views

thanks @SRSchmidgall for bringing it to my attention :)

Chubby♨️Chubby♨️@kimmonismus

A team of former DeepMind researchers just raised $50M to build an AI lab built around recursive self-improvement at the level of the whole research organization, not only a single model. Index and Radical co-led, NVIDIA's venture arm is in, and angels like Dwarkesh Patel, Thomas Wolf and Max Jaderberg are on the cap table. The founders have the track record to back it up. Louis Kirsch comes out of the Schmidhuber lineage on self-improving systems. Edward Hughes has argued that open-endedness is essential for artificial superhuman intelligence. Tantum Collins worked on AI policy in the Biden White House. Their idea is simple and big at the same time. Today's models are great at answering questions, but real discovery also depends on knowing which questions are worth asking. Inherent wants AI that works right next to humans inside that loop, as a collaborator and not only a tool. They call it living within the experiment. They also set it up as a Public Benefit Corporation, so the mission is written into the company from day one. This is the direction a lot of us have been hoping for, and one of the more credible attempts at recursive self-improvement I've seen so far. Really excited for it.

11:06 AM · May 30, 2026 · 64.8K Views
11:07 AM · May 30, 2026 · 3.2K Views
Former DeepMind researchers launch Inherent with $50 million to build recursively self-improving AI agents for science · Digg