 | |
Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial intelligence, enterprise software |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Founders | Julien Launay, Baptiste Pannier, Daniel Hesslow, Alessandro Cappelli, Axel Marmet, Olivier Cruchant |
| Headquarters | New York, United States; Paris, France |
Key people | Julien Launay (CEO), Baptiste Pannier (CTO) |
| Products | Adaptive Engine |
| Services | Tools for deploying open-source LLMs |
Number of employees | 32 (2025)1 |
| Website | www |
Adaptive ML (often styled as Adaptive) is a private software company based in New York, United States and Paris, France.2 The company focuses on reinforcement learning (“RLOps”),2 providing tools that allow organizations to customize and operate open-source large language models for specific applications.3
History
Adaptive ML was founded in 2023 by Julien Launay, Baptiste Pannier, Daniel Hesslow, Alessandro Cappelli, Axel Marmet and Olivier Cruchant who had previously contributed to open-source language model projects such as Falcon and BLOOM, and held research and engineering roles at Hugging Face.245
In March 2024, Adaptive ML raised a seed round of US $20 million led by Index Ventures,6 with participation from ICONIQ Capital, Motier Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and other investors. Sifted reported an implied valuation of $100m in this round.47
Adaptive’s product team is based in Paris, France, while its corporate, financial, and sales and marketing functions are in New York.8
Technology and products
Adaptive ML develops a software platform called Adaptive Engine, used to fine-tune and operate open-source large language models.9
The platform enables reinforcement-learning–based post-training and model-evaluation processes intended for data science teams. Reported areas of application include database query generation, automated customer-service workflows, and systems for retrieving internal information.10
Business model and vision
Adaptive ML operates on a B2B model: the platform is targeted at enterprises that wish to deploy large language models with a high degree of customization, privacy, and control, rather than using third-party public LLM APIs.1112
The company’s mission emphasizes long-term adaptability and continuous learning: as users interact with a model, their behavior and feedback become data for ongoing model tuning and improvement, allowing organizations to tailor AI systems to their specific domain, data, and user needs.11
References
References
- "Adaptive ML – Company Profile & Employee Comparisons". PitchBook. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
- Kahn, Jeremy (11 March 2024). "Team behind popular Falcon AI models unveils new startup with $20 million in funding aimed at helping companies tailor LLMs for business". Fortune. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
- "Adaptive ML". Index Ventures. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
- "Custom-made gen AI for businesses: Adaptive ML closes $20m seed round". Sifted. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- "Abu Dhabi-based TII launches its own version of ChatGPT". Fast Company Middle East. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- Dillet, Romain (2023-11-09). "There's something going on with AI startups in France". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- "Adaptive, la start-up d'IA générative qui a séduit Index et Iconiq". Les Echos (in French). 2024-03-11. Archived from the original on 2024-03-11. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- "Adaptive ML 2025 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors". PitchBook. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- "What the pitch deck from Adaptive, a new AI startup raising at a $100m valuation, tells us". Sifted. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- Super Data Science: ML & AI Podcast with Jon Krohn (2025-08-14). How to Get Started with Adaptive ML (feat. Adaptive CEO Julien Launay). Retrieved 2025-11-19 – via YouTube.
- "Adaptive ML raises $20M to help companies build unique GenAI experiences - IRIS". www.iris.vc. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
- "Adaptive ML". www.adaptive-ml.com. Retrieved 2025-12-03.