Igor Babuschkin Pursues Up to $1 Billion in Funding for River AI

xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin has founded a new AI research startup, River AI, and is pursuing funding of up to $1 billion. Forbes reported that the round's target valuation is up to $5 billion, and that General Catalyst is in discussions to lead the investment.

Babuschkin plans to invest up to $100 million of his own money as well. River AI was confirmed to have been incorporated in Nevada on April 20, 2026, but Babuschkin and General Catalyst have not made official comments.

Specific technical roadmaps or product plans have not been disclosed. However, River AI belongs to the recently growing trend of so-called neolabs, like the separate project led by Recursive Intelligence and David Silver, and could further intensify the race for long-term research and large-scale compute acquisition.