AI Evaluation Startup LMArena Valued at $1.7 Billion in New Funding Round

LMArena, a startup that operates a widely cited ranking of AI models based on their performance, has raised $150 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion, including the new money, according to the company. That’s nearly triple the valuation of its seed funding round, announced in May 2025.

The funding round, co-led by existing investors Felicis and the University of California’s investment arm, will help the company pay for computing power to run AI models it evaluates for customers such as OpenAI, Google, xAI and Microsoft, as well as hire technical staff. Millions of people visit LMArena’s site to rate the models based on head-to-head comparisons, and those ratings inform the rankings.