Co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity launches $100M AI research institute

Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity, established the Laude Institute, a new AI research institute, committing $100 million of his personal capital to fund its operations.

The Laude Institute operates as a funding entity, structuring its financial contributions as grant-like investments, rather than functioning as a traditional AI research laboratory. The institute’s board of directors includes Andy Konwinski; Dave Patterson, a University of California, Berkeley professor recognized for award-winning research; Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist; and Joelle Pineau, Meta’s vice president of AI Research.

The Laude Institute’s initial and primary grant allocates $3 million annually for a period of five years. This funding will serve as the foundational support for the new AI Systems Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. Ion Stoica, current director of the Sky Computing Lab and co-founder of both Anyscale and Databricks, will lead the new AI Systems Lab. Anyscale, an AI and Python platform, and Databricks, an AI big data company, were developed from technology originating within Berkeley’s lab system. The AI Systems Lab is scheduled to commence operations in 2027 and will include additional prominent researchers alongside Stoica.

Konwinski articulated the institute’s mission in a blog post, stating it is “built by and for computer science researchers.” He specified, “We exist to catalyze work that doesn’t just push the field forward but guides it towards more beneficial outcomes.”

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The institute’s structure is bifurcated into a nonprofit entity with a public benefit corporation operating arm. Konwinski categorizes his research investments into two distinct types: “Slingshots” and “Moonshots.” “Slingshots” are designated for early-stage research projects that can benefit from grants and direct assistance.

“Moonshots” are reserved for “long-horizon labs tackling species-level challenges like AI for scientific discovery, civic discourse, healthcare, and workforce re-skilling.” The Laude Institute has engaged in collaborations, including with “terminal-bench,” a Stanford-led benchmark designed to assess the performance of AI agents in handling tasks, which Anthropic utilizes.

Beyond the grant-making research institute, Konwinski’s endeavors under the “Laude” name also encompass a for-profit venture fund, co-founded in 2024 with Pete Sonsini, a former NEA Ventures Capitalist. A spokesperson for Laude indicated that the fund includes more than 50 leading researchers as limited partners. Laude previously led a $12 million investment in Arcade, an AI agent infrastructure startup, and has provided quiet backing to other startups as well.

While Konwinski has pledged $100 million of his own capital to the Laude Institute, a Laude spokesperson affirmed that he is open to and actively seeking additional investment from other successful technologists. Konwinski’s financial capacity stems from his involvement with Databricks, which completed a $15.3 billion funding round in January, resulting in a company valuation of $62 billion. Separately, Perplexity achieved a $14 billion valuation in the preceding month.

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