Investing in Vals
August 13, 2026
a16z led 400M valuation. Vals builds independent real-world AI evaluation — domain-expert workflows with automated grading, private test sets, results within hours of model access.
Benchmarks are perishable by design; saturated tests retired (e.g., CorpFin replaced by Excel Modelling Benchmark in May 2026). Revenue 8x in 2025; customer base doubled; team tripled in six months.
Launched: Vals Smith (GitHub repo benchmarks), frontier-risk benchmarks, Vals Index 2.0.