Laude Institute

What Laude Institute does

Laude Institute is a California-domiciled Public Benefit Corporation (legal entity: Laude Research Institute PBC) that operates as a research catalyst and grant-making organization at the intersection of academia and industry. Founded in 2024 by Andy Konwinski (Apache Spark co-creator, Databricks alumnus) and Dave Patterson (RISC pioneer) alongside four additional co-founders, the institute is anchored by a $100 million pledge from Konwinski and is governed by a board that includes Jeff Dean and Joelle Pineau. Its primary activity is funding computer science researchers through two flagship programs: Slingshots, which provides fast-turnaround, no-strings-attached grants (plus compute, engineering support, and advising) for researchers turning work into startups or open-source infrastructure, with three cohorts delivered between November 2025 and June 2026; and Moonshots, which seeds proven academic researchers tackling species-level AI challenges with $250,000 initial grants and the potential for $10 million multi-year labs. The Moonshots // ONE cohort (announced April 2026) selected 8 seed winners, 4 runners-up, and 13 honorable mentions from 125 proposals representing 600+ researchers across 47 institutions.

Laude's underlying technology footprint consists of evaluation and infrastructure platforms rather than consumer products. Notable proprietary or co-developed assets include the Impact Index (a novel methodology for measuring researcher impact beyond paper citations), Terminal-Bench (an AI coding-agent benchmark built as a Stanford x Laude collaboration that reached industry-standard status in 126 days), KPrize.ai (an online code-competition platform), and the Harbor agent-evaluation framework that builds on Terminal-Bench. Funded projects through Slingshots have produced widely adopted open-source artifacts such as DSPy, SGLang, CodeClash, QED-Nano, MLEnergy, Intelligence-Per-Watt, and OpenThoughts-Agent. A 26-person selection committee including Turing Award winners, Nobel laureates, and ACM Fellows evaluates Moonshots proposals.

Laude does not generate product or service revenue. It is funded by individual technologists, primarily through the Konwinski anchor pledge and a separate philanthropic inbox (give@laude.org). Its go-to-market is applicant-driven — researchers apply through laude.org and slingshots.laude.org — supplemented by a multi-campus university roadshow and the SYR Summit. All funded work is required to ship as open source. The entity is not a venture-backed company; it is a philanthropic PBC with an adjacent Laude Ventures arm for potential follow-on investment in portfolio researchers and startups.

Name

Laude Institute

Legal name

Laude Research Institute PBC

Website

https://laude.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2025

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Laude Institute is a California Public Benefit Corporation that funds computer science researchers through fast-turnaround Slingshots grants and multi-year Moonshots labs, requiring all funded work to ship as open source. It is anchored by a $100M pledge from co-founder Andy Konwinski.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Grants and program funding, Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Laude Institute is a research institute that funds and supports computer science researchers through grant programs (Slingshots for fast, low-friction grants and Moonshots for multi-year labs) and operates evaluation platforms (KPrize.ai for code competitions, Impact Index for researcher impact tracking, and Terminal-Bench for AI agent benchmarking). All funded research outputs are required to ship as open source.

Product overview

Laude Institute operates as a research catalyst and grant-making organization at the intersection of academia and industry. The organization provides two main funding programs: Slingshots (fast, low-friction grants for researchers turning research into startups or open-source infrastructure) and Moonshots (seed funding and multi-year labs for proven researchers tackling species-level AI challenges). Laude also operates supporting platforms including KPrize.ai for code competitions, Laude.org for grant applications, and the Impact Index for tracking researcher impact. The Slingshots program has funded three cohorts (ONE, TWO, THREE) supporting benchmarks (Terminal-Bench, Harbor, CodeClash, Frontier-CS, TBench Science), frameworks (DSPy, SGLang, OpenThoughts-Agent), models (QED-Nano), and tools (Intelligence-Per-Watt, MLEnergy) - all required to ship as open source. The Moonshots // ONE program selected 8 seed winners across four societal challenge categories with potential for $10M multi-year labs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Slingshots Grants Program
• Moonshots Program
• KPrize.ai Online code competition platform for evaluating AI systems on programming challenges, part of Laude's suite of research evaluation tools. Includes a $1M prize competition for AI that can close 90% of GitHub issues.
• Impact Index Impact tracking platform for researchers that measures and tracks research impact beyond paper citations, assessing what researchers created and what it unlocked for others.
• Terminal-Bench Benchmark evaluating AI agents on command-line terminal environments for coding tasks, developed as a Stanford x Laude collaboration. Went from idea to industry-standard evaluation for AI coding agents in 126 days.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability12 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

14 partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.

• Cornell University (Kleinberg Lab)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 April 2026Cornell researchers led by Jon Kleinberg received $250,000 seed grant for a five-year 'moonshot' project to develop AI tools and protocols ensuring trustworthy AI-mediated communication across online platforms.
• Stanford UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStanford is a key partner institution for Laude Institute. Multiple Slingshots and Moonshots projects involve Stanford researchers. Co-founder Andy Konwinski is a Stanford alumnus and Berkeley professor who helped create Apache Spark. Founding MoTS Alex Shaw and other team members are associated with Stanford.
• UC BerkeleycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBerkeley is a key partner with multiple Slingshots projects including Terminal-Bench, DSPy, SkyRL, rLLM, and Continual Learning Benchmark. Laude co-founder Andy Konwinski is a Berkeley professor.
• MITcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMIT researchers participate in multiple Slingshots projects including RLMs, GUM, Arbor, and various Moonshots teams including Deliberation at National Scale.
• Carnegie Mellon UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCMU is a key research partner with projects including QED-Nano, SREGym, ASAPQuery, ARISTOS, and Build With Not For.
• Princeton UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrinceton collaborated on Senior SWE-Bench benchmark development alongside Snorkel AI and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Also involved in Moonshots honorable mention project on democratic deliberation.
• Cornell UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCornell researchers received $250,000 seed grant for 'Rebuilding Trust in Civic Discourse' Moonshots project led by Jon Kleinberg. Also hosts teams on AI for healthcare and other projects.
• University of ChicagomajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUChicago researchers received seed grant for 'Actionable AI Weather Forecasts for Developing Economies' Moonshots project led by Rebecca Willett.
• University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUIUC researchers participate in multiple projects including SREGym, MLEnergy, and Immersive Intelligence for Anywhere Anytime Healthcare Moonshots project.
• University of California Los AngelesmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUCLA researchers received seed grant for 'Accelerating the Queen of Sciences' Moonshots project including Terence Tao to develop AI that conjectures, proves, and discovers mathematics.
• University of Wisconsin–MadisonmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUW-Madison collaborated on Senior SWE-Bench benchmark development alongside Snorkel AI and Princeton University. Also part of university roadshow stops.
• Harvard UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHarvard researchers led by Ariel Procaccia received seed grant for 'Deliberation at National Scale' Moonshots project for AI systems enabling millions of citizens to deliberate simultaneously.
• Selection Committee MemberscoreOthersWorld-class selection committee including Turing Award winners (John Hennessy), Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, and leading AI researchers who evaluate Moonshots proposals.
• Research AdvisorscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerExtensive network of research advisors including Jeff Dean (Google), Joelle Pineau (Meta), Percy Liang (Stanford), Ion Stoica (Berkeley), and other leading technologists providing guidance.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Arc Institute: Arc Institute is a research institute in Palo Alto founded by Patrick Collison that conducts and supports scientific research with a focus on computational biology and AI. Similar to Laude, Arc provides long-term funding and resources to researchers pursuing ambitious projects outside traditional academic constraints, making it a closely comparable peer in mission and operating model.
• Allen Institute for AI (AI2): AI2 is a non-profit research institute founded by Paul Allen that conducts AI research with a focus on high-impact projects. Both organizations are non-profit AI research institutes that combine grant-making with direct research operations and are backed by tech-billionaire founders, though AI2 focuses on conducting research in-house rather than primarily funding academic researchers.
• Open Philanthropy: Open Philanthropy is a major philanthropic funder that has committed significant resources to AI safety and AI research. Both organizations provide large-scale funding for AI research with a focus on long-term impact and attracting exceptional researchers, though Open Philanthropy operates with broader thematic scope while Laude focuses specifically on CS research translation.
• Schmidt Futures: Schmidt Futures is Eric Schmidt's philanthropic initiative supporting talented researchers and scientific advances. Similar to Laude, it identifies and supports exceptional researchers pursuing ambitious projects, with a comparable founder profile (tech billionaire with academic credibility) and focus on AI/CS research advancement.
• Astera Institute: Astera Institute is a research foundation funding ambitious science and technology projects with a focus on long-horizon research. It shares Laude's model of funding individual researchers with significant grants and providing resources to translate research into real-world applications, making it a closely comparable peer in mission and structure.

Emerging players

• Future House: Future House is a non-profit AI research organization focused on building AI scientists to accelerate research. It operates as a smaller, more focused research entity than Laude, with similar mission-driven approach to AI for scientific discovery but different operational model (in-house research vs. external grant-making).
• Wellcome Leap: Wellcome Leap funds bold, unconventional research with multi-year programs targeting breakthroughs in human health. Its program structure (multi-year, high-stakes, ambitious goals) parallels Laude's Moonshots model, though it focuses on biomedical research rather than CS/AI and operates within a different funding context.

Broad incumbents

• Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI): HHMI is one of the largest biomedical research organizations in the US, employing and funding scientists directly. While much larger and focused on biomedical rather than CS research, HHMI shares Laude's model of providing long-term, flexible funding to exceptional researchers and operates as a research-focused non-profit.
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI): CZI is a major philanthropic initiative funding science, education, and other causes, including significant AI and biomedical research funding. While operating at much larger scale and broader scope, CZI shares Laude's approach of tech-billionaire-backed research grantmaking with focus on long-term impact and patient capital.
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: Sloan Foundation is a major philanthropic foundation supporting scientific research, including significant computer science and AI research funding. It shares Laude's grantmaking model for fundamental research but operates at much larger scale with broader scientific scope and a longer historical track record.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/LaudeInstitute
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/laude-institute

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Laude Institute