PRAGUE — EquiLibre Technologies, an AI laboratory based in Prague, secured a Series A funding round, which valued the company at $500 million. Creandum led the funding round.

EquiLibre Technologies was founded in Czechia by Martin Schmid, Rudolf Kadlec, and Matej Moravcik. Schmid serves as CEO, Kadlec as CTO, and Moravcik as CSO. The company built its initial team in 2022 and currently has a headcount of 25 people. The company plans to scale its compute infrastructure.

Prior to its Series A, EquiLibre Technologies raised two other funding rounds. Credo was an early backer, providing pre-seed funding. The company also completed a $10 million seed round, led by Blossom Capital, which valued EquiLibre Technologies at $140 million.

EquiLibre's algorithms trade billions in daily volume across the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The founders worked together as visiting PhD students at DeepMind's AI research office in Edmonton, Alberta. While at DeepMind, they built DeepStack, an AI program that became the first to defeat professional players at no-limit poker. Alphabet shut down its AI research office in Edmonton in 2023.

Reflecting on the connection between their work and financial markets, CEO Martin Schmid stated in a podcast interview, "The common denominator between poker and Wall Street is that they are well suited for reinforcement learning, an AI training technique where self-learning models are incentivized by rewards." Schmid also said, "I'm not doing this because I'm excited about making markets efficient. I'm doing this because we are all excited about building new things that have never been built before, and this is a lot of fun to build." He added, "This is not a winner-takes-all market." Rich Sutton, recipient of the Turing Award in 2024, is part of EquiLibre's advisory board. Cameron Sellers, vice president of Creandum, commented on the market potential. "The potential total addressable market of trading in the financial markets is one of the biggest on earth, and there are countless funds over the years that have generated quantums of profit that make most venture-backed successes look small," Sellers said.

Why It Matters

EquiLibre Technologies' recent funding round indicates investor interest in AI applications within financial markets. The $500 million valuation for a Series A round positions the company among emerging enterprises in the AI sector. The company's origins with founders who developed an AI capable of beating professional poker players suggests a transfer of advanced AI research capabilities into high-frequency trading, and its current operations involve daily trading volumes. The company's trajectory, involving multiple funding rounds and a growing team, reflects expansion within the AI and finance industries.