Despite denials by the company, Israeli artificial intelligence company AI21 Labs Ltd. looks set to be acquired sooner or later. The company, co-founded by Prof. Amnon Shashua, is in talks to be acquired by Dutch AI cloud provider Nebius Group N.V. (NasdaqGS:NBIS), founded by Israelis and former Yandex executives Arkady Volozh and Roman Chernin, "The Information" reported. AI21 Labs, despite previously denying talks on a sale to Nvidia, is looking for an exit after failing to penetrate the market with its language models.
It has recently been gaining relative success with its AI agent management product, Maestro. AI21 Labs was given a $1.4 billion price tag in 2023, and investors in the company, including Pitango, Intel Capital, B2 Ventures, Coatue, Google and Nvidia, are estimated to be looking for a premium on the investment and hoping to sell AI21 Labs for several billion dollars. Nebius shares have risen 49% since the start of the year and 523% over the past year, riding a wave of investment in AI-related capital equipment.
