Company Overview - Giotto.ai, based in Switzerland, is launching a funding round with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, aiming to become a leading European player in artificial general intelligence (AGI) [1][3] - The company has raised $19 million in funding to date and plans to use the new funds to advance AI research and develop commercial prototypes for enterprise and government clients [4][2] Funding Details - Giotto.ai is seeking to raise over $200 million (SFr158 million) with the assistance of investment bank Lazard [1][2] - The funding initiative is seen as a barometer for investor interest in new European entrants in the competitive AGI landscape, which is currently dominated by US firms [3] Research and Development - Giotto.ai is focused on core research in reasoning models and has demonstrated its research proficiency by leading the Kaggle ARC-AGI-2 leaderboard with a 25% score, indicating a reduced cost per task compared to larger labs [5][4] - The company plans to open-source select core technologies as part of its development strategy [2] Competitive Landscape - The European AI sector is gaining momentum as it seeks to establish leadership and promote digital independence from US and Chinese influence [3] - Giotto.ai participates in Kaggle's fixed resource track, which imposes constraints such as no internet connectivity and a maximum time budget of 12 hours per run, contrasting with the unconstrained ARC Prize platform used by major labs [6]