Numerai raises $30m to build ‘the last hedge fund’

Numerai — the San Francisco hedge fund that looks more like a sci-fi lab than a Wall Street operation — has raised $30 million in Series C funding, the company announced.

Summary

• Numerai scored backing from university endowments and existing investors like Union Square Ventures and Paul Tudor Jones.
• The AI-driven hedge fund now marches toward nearly $1 billion in AUM.
• Numerai plans to expand AI engineering, grow its global data science tournament, and scale institutional products.

The round, led by university endowments, values Numerai at $500 million. That’s a fivefold leap from 2023, suggesting the company’s AI models were very persuasive.

The funding comes on the heels of J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s August 2025 pledge of up to $500 million in capacity for Numerai’s hedge fund products. With fresh equity and bank-sized backing, Numerai is now positioned to scale toward nearly $1 billion in assets under management.

Union Square Ventures, Shine Capital, and macro investor Paul Tudor Jones joined the round.

This round brings together exactly the type of investors we want behind Numerai — long-term, deeply informed, and willing to back a very different model of asset management built for the 21st century,” said Richard Craib, Founder and CEO of Numerai. “With this capital, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s capacity commitment, we can push harder on our mission of building the world’s last hedge fund — powered by AI built by top competitive data scientists around the world.”

The company plans to deploy the new capital toward expanding its AI engineering teams, building out research capabilities, growing its global data science tournament, and scaling institutional products — essentially beefing up every part of its machine-driven investment factory.

Numerai’s AUM has rocketed from about $60 million to $550 million in three years. Its flagship global equity fund returned 25.45% net in 2024, with only one down month — a performance traditional managers might chalk up to “skill” but Numerai might credit to “ensemble model synergy.”

The firm’s strategy is powered by a worldwide data science competition where thousands of models contribute stock-picking signals that get blended into a single “Meta Model.” It’s effectively a quant Battle Royale, except instead of weapons, contestants stake Numeraire — Numerai’s Ethereum-based (ETH) cryptocurrency. Good predictions earn more NMR; bad ones get punished. It’s survival of the fittest… or at least survival of the least overfit.

Founded in 2015, Numerai straddles a hedge fund and an open data science platform, letting freelance quants plug into its trading system via API. J.P. Morgan’s commitment gave the firm both institutional validation and a path to higher revenue through increased AUM. Unsurprisingly, the NMR token jumped 41% on the news and now trades around $11.65 — proof that even crypto loves a good Series C.