Vals Raises $40M to Create Neutral AI Benchmark Tests

Andreessen Horowitz invests $40M in Series A funding for Vals, a startup that black boxes test AI models across legal, finance, and programming domains. Vals ensures questions remain secret to prevent training an AI model with the answers. In the past year, they’ve grown revenue by 8x.

As AI labs become better at optimizing for specific benchmarks, it becomes harder to rely on them. Vals wants to set up a “college board” of unbiased tests that are resistant to manipulation. Sometimes I think the benchmark results are overstated in marketing materials, so this is great news!