#101 on the AGIX Leaderboard · score 3
Essential AI
Founded by two Transformer paper authors; builds open models.
| Type | AGI-focused startups |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2023 |
| Founders | Ashish Vaswani, Niki Parmar |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, US |
| Website | essential.ai |
Essential AI funding filings
Essential AI has filed 1 Form D notice with the SEC under the name we track. Form D is filed after an exempt securities sale; "amount sold" is what the company reported at the time.
| Filed | Form | Amount sold | Offering size | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Nov 2023 | D | $36.5M | $51.5M | SEC filing |
Source: SEC EDGAR full-text search for "Essential AI", Form D. Name matches can include unrelated filers; tell us if one is wrong.
Essential AI models
Latest releases
- EssentialAI/rnj-1.5-instruct22 Apr 2026
- EssentialAI/rnj-1-instruct-GGUF5 Dec 2025
- EssentialAI/rnj-1-instruct4 Dec 2025
- EssentialAI/rnj-113 Nov 2025
- EssentialAI/eai-distill-0.5b14 Jun 2025
Most downloaded
- EssentialAI/eai-distill-0.5b282,115 downloads (30 days)
- EssentialAI/rnj-1-instruct1,975 downloads (30 days)
- EssentialAI/rnj-1.5-instruct1,084 downloads (30 days)
- EssentialAI/rnj-1905 downloads (30 days)
- EssentialAI/rnj-1-instruct-GGUF262 downloads (30 days)
Source: Hugging Face Hub, organisation EssentialAI, read 2 Nov 2026.
Essential AI: quick answers
Who founded Essential AI?
Essential AI was founded in 2023 by Ashish Vaswani, Niki Parmar.
How much has Essential AI raised according to SEC filings?
Its most recent Form D, filed 6 Nov 2023, reported $36.5M sold. Form D figures cover one offering, not total funding.
People at Essential AI
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