Naveen Rao’s new startup, Unconventional AI, confirmed a seed funding round totaling $475 million, which values the company at $4.5 billion. The announcement was made on December 9, 2025.
The funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures, with additional participation from Lux Capital and DCVC. This initial capital represents a first installment towards a stated goal of securing up to $1 billion for the round, Rao informed Bloomberg.
Unconventional AI's stated mission involves developing a new computer architecture aimed at achieving high energy efficiency for artificial intelligence applications. Rao has previously communicated via X (formerly Twitter) his ambition to create a computer that is "as efficient as biology."
Rao, who previously served as the head of AI at Databricks, brings a history of successful ventures in the AI hardware and software domain. His prior company, MosaicML, was acquired by Databricks in 2023 for $1.3 billion. Before MosaicML, Rao co-founded Nervana Systems, a machine learning platform that Intel Corp. acquired in 2016 for a reported sum exceeding $400 million.
