TechCrunch Startup News LMArena lands $1.7B valuation four months after launching its product; plus, Intel spinout Articul8 raises more than half of $70M round at $500M valuation
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Jan 7, 2026 LMArena has skyrocketed to a $1.7B valuation, achieving unicorn status in just seven months after its $150M Series A. The company has also generated an impressive $30M in annual recurring revenue shortly after launch. Meanwhile, Intel spinout Articul8 has raised over half of a $70M funding round, reaching a $500M valuation. This company is thriving with a revenue-positive model and is expanding internationally, backed by partnerships with tech giants like NVIDIA and Google Cloud.
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User Comparisons Power Model Rankings
- LMArena uses user pairwise comparisons across models to power leaderboards and evaluations.
- Those evaluations cover text, vision, reasoning, and specialized model categories across many providers.
Rapid Commercialization Via Crowdsourced Leaderboards
- LMArena scaled from a UC Berkeley research project to a $1.7B post-money valuation within seven months.
- Its crowdsourced leaderboard and 5M monthly users drove $30M annualized revenue soon after commercial launch.
From UC Berkeley Research To Startup
- LMArena began as Chatbot Arena, an open UC Berkeley research project funded by grants and donations.
- The founders later commercialized the project and partnered with model companies like OpenAI and Google.