Something serious just lit up in the hills of San Francisco, and no, it’s not another overfunded chatbot with a God complex. This time it’s Goodfire, and they’re not just tossing sparks. They just closed a $50M Series A to turn the black box of AI into something a little less… black.
Led by Menlo Ventures and backed by heavy hitters like Lightspeed, B Capital , Anthropic (yes, that Anthropic, making their first direct investment into another company), Wing Venture Capital, Work-Bench, South Park Commons, Halcyon Ventures, and Metaplanet, this wasn’t just a funding round, it was a vote of no-BS confidence.
And the crew behind it? Eric Ho (CEO), Daniel Balsam (CTO), and Tom McGrath (Chief Scientist). These guys aren’t building hype; they’re building infrastructure for the soul of the machine.
Goodfire’s platform, Ember, doesn’t just peek inside foundation models. It dissects them by mapping neurons, decoding behaviors, and making the whole thing not just human-readable, but programmable. Think MRI tools for 70B parameter models that hallucinate like they’ve been microdosing LSD.
The secret sauce? Mechanistic Interpretability. Sparse Auto encoders. Auto steer. Jail break Resistance. This isn’t “trust but verify.” It’s “understand it, hotwire it, fix it, drive it better.”
Real traction? Already there. Ember’s been used on DeepSeek R1, teamed up with Arc Institute on DNA model introspection, and deployed in the wild with Rakuten, Apollo Research, and Haize Labs.
Goodfire’s not selling mirrors and mystique. They’re building glass boxes; the kind that let enterprises actually see inside their AI stack. And for the 44% of enterprise teams who’ve already been burned by rogue behavior, that kind of clarity is a game-changer.
The kicker? They’re scaling fast, in-person, five days a week, from the heart of SF. The squad, Lee Sharkey, Myra Deng, Nam Nguyen, Grace Park, is stacked. If you’re bringing heat, heart, and backbone, they’re hiring.
AI’s future won’t be won by those with the biggest model. It’ll be won by those who actually understand what their model’s doing, and how to make it better.
Goodfire isn’t just making AI interpretable. They’re making it safe, steerable, and real. And in a world teetering on algorithmic autopilot, that kind of fire? That’s not just good, it’s necessary.
Let’s connect and keep the momentum going across the tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder shaping the future, a leader driving change, a VC backing bold ideas, or an investor spotting the next big thing—together, we’re pushing boundaries. Proud to be building the future with you.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and keep the conversation going.