Three former DeepMind researchers who developed an AI that defeated humans at poker have now applied the same technology to stock trading — and the gamble appears to be paying off. Their Prague-based AI lab, EquiLibre Technologies, is now valued at $500 million after raising an undisclosed Series A round, TechCrunch learned.
The round was led by Creandum. Although the venture capital firm also declined to disclose the investment size, Vice President Cameron Sellers confirmed it was the largest single investment Creandum "has ever made in one go into a company," he told TechCrunch.
From Poker to Wall Street: Why Reinforcement Learning Works
The link between poker and financial markets is their suitability for reinforcement learning, an AI training technique where self-learning models are motivated by rewards. According to EquiLibre CEO Martin Schmid, "The nice thing about trading and markets is that the scoring is super simple: how much money did the agent make?"
This is not just theoretical. In partnership with quantitative firm Tower Research Capital, EquiLibre’s algorithms have been trading billions in daily volume across the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The startup claims its agents have performed well since their rollout on crypto markets in 2025, and now on stock exchanges, boasting "a perfect record of zero negative months since inception" — meaning they have ended each month with overall positive returns.
AI in Quant Finance: A Growing Trend
By applying its AI to quantitative hedge funds, EquiLibre enters a field where automation is the norm, and successful improvements can rapidly translate into profits. This potential made the startup attractive to Creandum, Sellers said. "The potential total addressable market of trading in the financial markets is one of the biggest on earth, and there are countless funds over the years that have generated quantums of profit that make most venture-backed successes look small." However, he noted that EquiLibre explicitly defines itself as "a lab first, not a finance firm."
Schmid and his co-founders — CTO Rudolf Kadlec and CSO Matej Moravcik — lack a background in finance, but that is not their motivation. "I’m not doing this because I’m excited about making markets efficient. I’m doing this because we are all excited about building new things that have never been built before, and this is a lot of fun to build," Schmid told TechCrunch.
DeepMind Alumni Attract VC Interest in 2026
The pursuit of frontier AI by DeepMind alumni remains a hot area for venture capital in 2026. Another recent example is Ineffable Intelligence, which raised $1.1 billion in April 2026. Most such ventures are based in the U.K., but there are notable exceptions, including EquiLibre in Prague.
From DeepStack to Deep Markets
EquiLibre’s founding trio originally met as visiting PhD students at Google DeepMind’s first international AI research office in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (which Alphabet shut down in 2023). While there, they created DeepStack, the first AI program to defeat professional players at no-limit poker, also known as Texas hold 'em.
via TechCrunch AI