EdgeRunner AI Emerges from Stealth with $5.5M Seed Funding to Build Generative AI for the Edge
July 18 2024 - 11:00AM
Business Wire
EdgeRunner AI, a new startup building Generative AI for the
edge, announced today its official launch and the closing of a $5.5
million seed funding round led by Four Rivers Group with
participation from Madrona Ventures and strategic angels. The
funding will go towards building EdgeRunner AI’s innovative
platform, powered by state-of-the-art transparent models designed
to operate seamlessly on any device or hardware without requiring
internet access. This technology will transform how enterprises and
organizations responsibly deploy Generative AI, providing them with
hyper-personalization and domain specific use cases.
"The challenge with Generative AI today lies in its broad
applicability without addressing specific business needs," said
Tyler Xuan Saltsman, Co-Founder and CEO of EdgeRunner AI. "At
EdgeRunner, we empower organizations to own their AI. From my
military experience in Eastern Europe, I saw the need for
personalized, domain specific, and secure AI in isolated
environments. Black box proprietary models are aligned to the cloud
rather than the user. Understanding the biases within these opaque
models is complex and critical for both usability and safety. Our
approach ensures full transparency of models from weights and code
to architecture and datasets, that doesn't require you to move your
data and can run on any device and chip.”
By developing small, task-specific open models optimized for any
chip, EdgeRunner AI elevates SLMs (Small Language Models) into
Ultra-Efficient Language Models (UELMs). This allows organizations
to run AI models locally on any device or hardware, resulting in
improved performance, increased data privacy, near zero latency,
and reduced power consumption, for a better, more sustainable
future.
“Enterprises and governments don’t need GPT-5 or AGI. What they
need is to responsibly deploy Generative AI to solve their
real-world business challenges using multiple small, task-specific
open models working together to create swarm intelligence,” said
Colton Malkerson, Co-Founder & COO of EdgeRunner AI.
For more information about EdgeRunner AI’s groundbreaking
technology and partnership opportunities, please visit
www.edgerunnerai.com.
About EdgeRunner AI EdgeRunner AI is a transformative
startup on a mission to build Generative AI for the edge that is
safe, secure, and transparent. EdgeRunner AI develops small,
task-specific Ultra-Efficient Language Models (UELMs) that operate
without needing internet access, improving data privacy, security,
and compliance. By providing Generative AI solutions that run
locally on any device or hardware, EdgeRunner AI enables
enterprises and organizations to leverage AI technology
responsibly, without compromising performance or security.
EdgeRunner AI is backed by a $5.5 million seed round led by Four
Rivers Group with participation from Madrona Ventures and strategic
angels.
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Stephen Francy sfrancy@rubensteinpr.com 212.805.3017