Sakana AI may go public in 2027

Sakana AI might go public next year and is considering a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Nasdaq or both for its initial public offering (IPO), media reports say.

According to Nikkei, which broke the news, the company’s market capitalization could exceed Mercari’s ¥680 billion ($4.3 billion) and set Sakana AI on track to become one of Japan’s most valuable startup listings. Goldman Sachs has been hired as an adviser, according to the report.

In an X post on Monday, Sakana AI said it has no near-term plans for an IPO.

“Our priority remains building a generational AI company that serves as Japan’s national AI champion,” the post read.

Reports of a Sakana AI IPO come as artificial intelligence companies globally face a broad range of challenges related to valuations, resistance to data centers and questions about the usefulness of the technology.

AI shares were particularly hard-hit after U.S. midterm elections on concerns that a Democratic Party-dominated House and Senate would lead to stricter AI regulations and slow data center construction.

The Nasdaq is down about 9% from its all-time high in part on AI’s retreat.

Sakana AI raised ¥32 billion ($200 million) in Series B funding from global sponsors including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Google and Citi. Nvidia was a participant in an earlier Series A funding round.

Earlier this year, the company introduced Sakana Namazu, its first large language model (LLM), using Kimi 2.6, an open-weight model developed by China’s Moonshot AI.

In light of national security concerns related to overreliance on Chinese and U.S. models, Japan has made the development of its own LLMs a priority and has reportedly invested $6 billion in developing an AI via Noetra, a consortium that includes Sakana AI, SoftBank and Sony.

On Oct. 26, Sakana AI said that it was working to train its own LLM from scratch. Its planned Sakana Sawara series will include a large and a small model.