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Three erstwhile DeepMind researchers who created an AI that bushed humans astatine poker person present applied the aforesaid exertion to trading stocks — and the stake appears to beryllium paying off. Their Prague-based AI lab, EquiLibre Technologies, is present valued astatine $500 cardinal aft raising an undisclosed-sum Series A, TechCrunch learned.
The circular was led by Creandum, and, though the VC besides declined to disclose the size of the round, vice president Cameron Sellers confirmed that it was the largest azygous concern the steadfast “has ever made successful 1 spell into a company,” helium told TechCrunch.
The communal denominator betwixt poker and Wall Street is that they are good suited for reinforcement learning, an AI grooming method wherever self-learning models are incentivized by rewards. According to Martin Schmid, EquiLibre CEO, “The bully happening astir trading and markets is that the scoring is ace simple: however overmuch wealth did the cause make?”
This isn’t conscionable crippled money. In concern with quant steadfast Tower Research Capital, EquiLibre’s algorithms person been trading billions successful regular measurement crossed the S&P 500 and NASDAQ. The startup claims its agents person been doing good since their rollout connected crypto markets successful 2025, and present connected banal exchanges, with “a cleanable grounds of zero antagonistic months since inception,” meaning they person finished each period with their investments up overall.
By applying its AI to quant hedge funds, the startup is successful a tract wherever automation is commonplace and, if successful, improvements tin rapidly crook into cash. That made the startup appealing to Creandum, Sellers said.
“The imaginable full addressable marketplace of trading successful the fiscal markets is 1 of the biggest connected earth, and determination are countless funds implicit the years that person generated quantums of nett that marque astir venture-backed successes look small,” Sellers said. But helium noted that EquiLibre explicitly defines itself arsenic “a laboratory first, not a concern firm.”
Schmid and his 2 founders — CTO Rudolf Kadlec and CSO Matej Moravcik — don’t person a inheritance successful finance, and it is not what drives them, helium told TechCrunch. “I’m not doing this due to the fact that I’m excited astir making markets efficient. I’m doing this due to the fact that we are each excited astir gathering caller things that person ne'er been built before, and this is simply a batch of amusive to build,” Schmid said.
The imaginable of frontier AI by by DeepMind alumni is an country of blistery pursuit by VCs arsenic well. Another caller specified illustration is Ineffable Intelligence, which precocious raised 1.1 billion. Most of these are based successful the U.K., but determination are notable exceptions, including EquiLibre.
In the lawsuit of EquiLibre’s founding trio, they were visiting PhD students astatine the Google-owned company’s first planetary AI probe bureau successful Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (which Alphabet shut down successful 2023.) While there, they built DeepStack, the archetypal AI programme to decision pro players astatine no-limit poker, besides known arsenic Texas hold’em. They besides worked with professors who are present portion of the startup’s high-profile advisory committee — including Rich Sutton, who went connected to person the Turing grant successful 2024 for his enactment connected reinforcement learning.
To physique their startup, EquiLibre’s founders decided to determination backmost to their location country, Czechia. “This is wherever we had a batch of radical we had worked with, and determination was a ample Czech diaspora astatine Google and different places,” Schmid said. “These were our friends, truthful we told them, “Hey, guys, we are moving backmost to Prague, bash you privation to articulation us?”
That helped EquiLibre physique its archetypal squad backmost successful 2022 and scope its existent headcount of 25 people; but according to Schmid, that prime of determination keeps paying dividends. Compared to San Francisco, “It’s overmuch easier to support the bully radical here, due to the fact that there’s not a caller sexy AI happening happening each 2 months.”
Not that EquiLibre is the lone blistery AI startup successful town. BottleCap AI is based successful the aforesaid building.
Still, this is 1 of the much notable AI companies successful the portion for talent. It adjacent plans to standard its compute infrastructure, bringing online what it expects volition beryllium 1 of the largest compute clusters successful Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
While the startup besides declined to disclose its full backing to date, Schmid said it antecedently raised 2 different backing rounds, with pre-seed backers including CEE-focused VC steadfast Credo, which besides backed ElevenLabs and UiPath. According to Dealroom data, Equilibre’s $10 cardinal effect circular was led by Blossom Capital astatine a $140 cardinal valuation.
Sellers confirmed that the Series A $500 cardinal valuation was a large jump. But it besides comes aft the winds person changed favorably for reinforcement learning (RL), including successful trading. “When we started, radical were skeptical,” said Schmid. But present RL is the standard. “Because we started 4 years back, we judge we are ahead.”
Still, determination is simply a hazard that the startup volition get leapfrogged by competitors. Trading elephantine Jane Street, for instance, states it already uses RL with LLMs, “or immoderate other we request to bid bully models.” It besides claims it has “tens of thousands of high-end GPUs,” portion EquiLibre is seeking to compression much compute retired of mode less chips and “get much from less,” Schmid said.
Considering how profitable Jane Street is, EquiLibre volition person to play its cards good successful bid to scope its extremity to beryllium known arsenic “the AI laboratory successful trading.” But this isn’t poker, and determination mightiness beryllium nary losers. Says Schmid: “This is not a winner-takes-all market.”
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