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LMArena Secures $150 Million Series A at $1.7 Billion Valuation

Investors are backing human-judgment model testing as critical AI infrastructure.

Overview

  • LMArena closed a $150 million round at a $1.7 billion valuation, bringing its total fundraising to about $250 million in roughly seven months.
  • The financing was co-led by Felicis and UC Investments, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Laude Ventures.
  • The company runs a public, crowdsourced leaderboard where users compare anonymized AI model responses head-to-head to gauge real-world performance.
  • LMArena says more than five million monthly users across 150 countries generate about 60 million conversations a month, and its paid AI Evaluations service reached an annualized consumption rate of around $30 million by December.
  • A competitor paper in April alleged partnerships let some model makers game the benchmarks, a claim LMArena has denied.