Is Liquid AI profitable in 2026?

No profitability data is public. Third party estimates put revenue around $13.2M to $23.2M annualized as of late 2025, against $287.6M to $293M raised total and a $2.4B valuation set in December 2024, so the company is likely still cash burning.

Liquid AI is privately held and founder led, started March 2023 by MIT researchers Ramin Hasani, Mathias Lechner, Alexander Amini, and Daniela Rus. Investors include AMD Ventures, Shopify, Capgemini, Samsung Next, and The Pags Group, with no acquisition by a larger company reported as of July 2026.

Could AI replace Liquid AI's business?

Liquid AI's own product is small efficient AI models, so it faces direct commoditization risk from Google Gemma 4, Mistral Ministral 3, NVIDIA Nemotron 3, and Microsoft Phi, all shipping into the same on device niche as of early 2026. Its edge is a lead in efficiency, not a structural wall.

Is Liquid AI a safe company to join in 2026?

Mixed signal. Liquid AI has shipped real products like sub-20ms Shopify search and a planned Mercedes MBUX integration for H2 2026, and grew headcount to 124 by June 2026, up 55% year over year, but has not closed a new funding round since December 2024, now 19plus months stale.

Who is Liquid AI's biggest competitor?

Mistral AI is the closest rival, reporting about $400M ARR as of January 2026 and a EUR11.7B valuation as of September 2025, far outpacing Liquid AI's estimated $13M to $23M revenue. Google Gemma 4, NVIDIA Nemotron 3, and Microsoft Phi also compete directly in edge models.

Has Liquid AI raised a new funding round in 2026?

No priced round has been publicly reported since the $250M Series A closed December 13, 2024 at a roughly $2.3 to $2.4B valuation led by AMD Ventures. As of June 29, 2026, that remains the most recent priced round, per Crustdata.

AI companies and labs · United States

Liquid AI

liquid.ai ↗

MIT spinout building efficient non-transformer AI models for phones, cars, and edge devices.

Losing its protection

Assessed 20 July 2026 · Evidence as of 20 July 2026

The structural protection is eroding.

On the recordSince 20 July 2026 · Checkable from H2 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Mercedes MBUX production rollout in North America

The call

Liquid AI has real shipped products in cars and storefronts, but it's racing much richer rivals into the same small-model space without a fresh funding round to prove investors still believe the valuation.

Liquid AI builds artificial intelligence software that runs quickly on smaller devices like phones and car systems, without needing constant internet connection. The company has real products working today: super-fast search for Shopify, a system going into Mercedes cars in late 2026, and millions of downloads. But the company faces a tough problem: much larger, well-funded companies like Mistral, Google, NVIDIA, and Microsoft are all building almost identical fast AI systems at the same time, and their advantages can disappear in 12 to 18 months as the technology spreads. The biggest signal to watch is whether Liquid AI can raise new funding soon, because it has not raised money in over a year and a half, which suggests investors may be losing confidence in the cooler market of 2026.

Why

AI pressure: Mistral AI, Google Gemma 4, NVIDIA Nemotron 3, Microsoft Phi. Bigger labs now ship small, efficient edge models too, so Liquid's speed edge can vanish within a model generation or two. Could AI do the core job? Yes, likely.

Bigger players: Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alibaba. Each giant funds its own small-model line for phones and cars, competing directly with Liquid's core pitch with far more cash and distribution. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.

What protects it. Working, live production deals with Shopify and Mercedes give it real integration proof rivals can't just claim on a slide.

What would change this call

Liquid AI announces a new priced funding round within 6-12 months. Shows whether investors still value it near or above the $2.4B Series A mark.
Mercedes-Benz MBUX with Liquid's LFM ships in production vehicles in H2 2026. Confirms the flagship auto deal converts from plan to real deployed product.
Mistral, Google, or NVIDIA release edge/small models matching or beating LFM2 benchmarks. Shows whether Liquid's efficiency lead is eroding as predicted.

Key numbers

$250M raised at $2.4B valuation (Dec 2024)
Est. revenue $13M to $23M (2025-2026)
10M+ Hugging Face downloads (Jan 2026)

Named risks

No new priced funding round in 19plus months since December 2024 Series A, raising down round or runway risk. Severity: high
Efficiency lead in small models is transient and could erode as Gemma 4, Ministral 3, Nemotron 3 and Phi close the gap. Severity: high
Revenue concentration in a small number of whale accounts like Shopify and Mercedes-Benz with no audited revenue disclosed. Severity: medium
Better funded rivals such as Mistral at roughly EUR11.7B valuation can outspend Liquid AI on the same niche. Severity: medium

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
Mistral AI	losing to	Mistral reports ~$400M ARR as of Jan 2026 vs Liquid AI's estimated $13M to $23M
Google Gemma 4	contesting	Gemma 4 E2B/E4B edge models directly target same on-device niche as of late 2025
NVIDIA Nemotron 3	contesting	Nemotron 3 Super/Nano released March 2026, competing on cost-per-token in agentic tasks
Microsoft Phi	contesting	Named by Liquid AI itself as an efficiency benchmark it claims to beat, as of May 2026
Alibaba Qwen	contesting	Named among efficient small-model rivals contesting the same parameter class in 2026

Questions people ask

Is Liquid AI profitable in 2026?: No profitability data is public. Third party estimates put revenue around $13.2M to $23.2M annualized as of late 2025, against $287.6M to $293M raised total and a $2.4B valuation set in December 2024, so the company is likely still cash burning.
Who owns Liquid AI?: Liquid AI is privately held and founder led, started March 2023 by MIT researchers Ramin Hasani, Mathias Lechner, Alexander Amini, and Daniela Rus. Investors include AMD Ventures, Shopify, Capgemini, Samsung Next, and The Pags Group, with no acquisition by a larger company reported as of July 2026.
Could AI replace Liquid AI's business?: Liquid AI's own product is small efficient AI models, so it faces direct commoditization risk from Google Gemma 4, Mistral Ministral 3, NVIDIA Nemotron 3, and Microsoft Phi, all shipping into the same on device niche as of early 2026. Its edge is a lead in efficiency, not a structural wall.
Is Liquid AI a safe company to join in 2026?: Mixed signal. Liquid AI has shipped real products like sub-20ms Shopify search and a planned Mercedes MBUX integration for H2 2026, and grew headcount to 124 by June 2026, up 55% year over year, but has not closed a new funding round since December 2024, now 19plus months stale.
Who is Liquid AI's biggest competitor?: Mistral AI is the closest rival, reporting about $400M ARR as of January 2026 and a EUR11.7B valuation as of September 2025, far outpacing Liquid AI's estimated $13M to $23M revenue. Google Gemma 4, NVIDIA Nemotron 3, and Microsoft Phi also compete directly in edge models.
Has Liquid AI raised a new funding round in 2026?: No priced round has been publicly reported since the $250M Series A closed December 13, 2024 at a roughly $2.3 to $2.4B valuation led by AMD Ventures. As of June 29, 2026, that remains the most recent priced round, per Crustdata.

Timeline

2026-06-29Headcount reaches 124 employees, up 55% year over year, per Crustdata
2026-04Mercedes-Benz partnership announced to embed LFMs in MBUX starting H2 2026
2026-03Strategic partnership with Insilico Medicine for drug discovery models announced
2026-01LFM2 model family surpasses 10 million Hugging Face downloads
2025-11Multi-year Shopify partnership announced, sub-20ms LFM search goes live
2025-07-10Liquid AI releases LFM2 open source small foundation models and Brilliant Labs licensing deal
2024-12-13Series A closes at $250M led by AMD Ventures, valuation about $2.3 to $2.4B
2023-12Seed round of about $37.5M closes led by The Pags Group, valuation about $303M
2023-05Pre-seed round of about $5.6M closes led by OSS Capital
2023-03Liquid AI founded by Ramin Hasani, Mathias Lechner, Alexander Amini, and Daniela Rus

Revision history

20 July 2026

First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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