Discovery Loop, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded by Jeff Dean, a former chief scientist at Google, is seeking to raise funds again at a valuation of $50 billion.

Business Insider reported the development on Friday (local time), noting that the latest fundraising effort comes just weeks after the company sought to raise $1 billion at a valuation of around $10 billion. The strong investor interest in AI startups, coupled with intense demand for skilled researchers, is prompting companies to seek fresh capital at a rapid pace. The substantial costs involved in developing AI systems and operating research labs are also driving startups to raise funds sooner.

According to the report, the terms of the deal remain subject to change, and Discovery Loop may not ultimately secure funding at the proposed valuation.

The Dean-led startup describes itself as "automating discovery to accelerate science and engineering for the world," and the company aims to tackle some of science and engineering's hardest problems through the "parallel execution of thousands of experiments."

According to its career page, Discovery Loop's goal "is to build AI that acts as a genuinely positive, empowering force for humanity: not just a tool, but a partner in solving the problems that matter most."

In a talk last month, Dean, who spent 27 years at Google, said that he and his cofounders "might make decisions that are not in the company's financial interest but are in the broader societal good." A press release issued last month said Discovery Loop's first funding round was led by Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures, with Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, and Doerr Capital also participating. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Alphabet was among the company's founding investors and also serves as its cloud partner.

The former Google employee has a B.S. degree in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Minnesota. He also has an M.S. degree and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

Before his long stint at Google, Dean worked at several other companies and research organisations, where he gained experience in computer science and technology. According to his LinkedIn profile, he began working as a teaching assistant, following which he became a research assistant at the University of Washington.

Between 1996 and 1999, he worked as a member of the research staff at Western Research Laboratory. He also worked as a senior member of technical staff at mySimon.

Since August 1999, Dean has been a chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research. In August 2026, he founded Discovery Loop.

Dean has drawn much of the attention as a figure widely regarded as a legend within Google. However, Discovery Loop’s three other cofounders also bring extensive experience, having played key roles in developing some of the company’s major technologies, Business Insider reported.

Sanjay Ghemawat, who joined Google in 1999 and worked closely with Dean for years, contributed to the development of foundational distributed-computing technologies. Quoc Le, one of the early members of Google Brain, became a leading researcher in deep learning and large-scale neural networks, with his work contributing to advances in language and foundation models. Oriol Vinyals, meanwhile, was a prominent researcher at Google DeepMind, where his work focused on areas including sequence modelling and reinforcement learning.

Swati Gandhi is a digital journalist with over four years of experience, specialising in international and geopolitical issues. Her work focuses on foreign policy, global power shifts, and the political and economic forces shaping international relations, with a particular emphasis on how global developments affect India. She approaches journalism with a strong belief in context-driven reporting, aiming to break down complex global events into clear, accessible narratives for a wide readership.<br><br> Previously, Swati has worked at Business Standard, where she covered a range of beats including national affairs, politics, and business. This diverse newsroom experience helped her build a strong grounding in reporting, while also strengthening her ability to work across both breaking news and in-depth explanatory stories. Covering multiple beats early in her career has helped her be informed about her current work, allowing her to connect domestic developments with wider international trends.<br><br> At Live Mint, she focuses on international and geopolitical issues through a business and economic lens, examining how global political developments, foreign policy decisions, and power shifts impact markets, industries, and India’s strategic and economic interests.<br><br> She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English (Honours) from the University of Delhi and a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. Her academic training has shaped her emphasis on precision, analytical rigour, and clarity in writing. Her interests include global political economy and the intersection of geopolitics with business.<br><br> Outside work, Swati focuses on exploring her passion and love for food. From fancy cafes to street spots, Swati explores food like a true foodie.

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