Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev is stepping beyond trading apps with a new venture: Harmonic AI, a startup aiming to create what it calls "mathematical superintelligence." The company last month announced the closing of a $100 million Series B funding round, bringing its valuation to $875 million.
Tenev co-founded Palo Alto-based Harmonic in 2023 alongside CEO Tudor Achim, a former executive at autonomous driving company Helm.ai. Though he is not running the company day to day, Tenev serves as executive chairman, Bloomberg reports.
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Harmonic AI says the round was led by Kleiner Perkins with major backing from Paradigm, and included Ribbit Capital along with existing investors Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Charlie Cheever.
The startup closed a $75 million Series A round last year led by Sequoia Capital, with significant participation from Index Ventures and additional backing from GreatPoint Ventures, Era Funds, Blossom Capital, DST Global partners, Elefund, Nikesh Arora, and Jared Leto.
A Math-First AI That Promises No Hallucinations and Full Verification
Tenev said the company's near-term goal is to build AI that solves complex math problems better than any human. The long-term vision includes solving unsolved mathematical problems and expanding the approach to fields like physics and computer science, Bloomberg reports.
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Unlike OpenAI or Google's large language models, Harmonic emphasizes formal logic and mathematical reasoning over natural language training, which the company says helps eliminate the risk of hallucinations often seen in chatbots.
"We can ensure that every piece of output and every step in our model's reasoning is verifiably correct," Tenev told Bloomberg. "That is just a very different approach to building AI models that I think is going to be the approach that dominates in the future."
According to Harmonic, Aristotle has already shown measurable improvement. In tests using the MiniF2F benchmark, the model's score increased from 83% to 90% in a single month.
"Aristotle's MSI is uniquely suited for mission-critical applications where there is no margin for error, such as generating verified software and by formally verifying existing code – a breakthrough for industries including blockchain, financial services, aerospace and other safety-sensitive systems," Achim said in a statement.
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‘You Never Want to Take the Highest Offer': Why Tenev Chose a Sub-Unicorn Valuation
Despite having the investor interest to cross the $1 billion valuation mark, Tenev said he intentionally stopped at $875 million. "You never want to take the highest offer," he told Bloomberg, adding that optimizing for valuation is not the right move for a startup with long-term scientific ambitions.
According to Inc., Elon Musk recently told Y Combinator's AI Startup School that digital superintelligence could arrive this year or next. Tenev, who pursued a Ph.D. in math at UCLA before co-founding Robinhood, is now pushing toward advanced AI in a similar timeframe.
As the company scales its team and expands access to its flagship AI system, Aristotle, Harmonic is continuing to recruit engineers, researchers, and builders who want to push the boundaries of verified reasoning, according to its website.
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