Founded in November 2025 by Simone Conia and Edoardo Barba after years of research at La Sapienza University of Rome, Principled Intelligence builds technology that lets enterprises define their own operational principles and translate them into verifiable criteria for AI behavior. Its platform simulates realistic interactions, continuously monitors model outputs, and provides natural-language explanations for any violations, enabling transparent and controllable AI governance even for non-expert staff. The company previously created Minerva LLM, the first family of large language models trained from scratch on Italian data, which has logged more than 300,000 downloads across universities, companies and developers. Unlike existing governance tools, Principled Intelligence emphasizes easy customization via natural language and deep explainability, aiming to reduce reputational, regulatory and operational risks tied to generative AI deployment. Proceeds from the current financing will be used to expand the team and accelerate the rollout of its enterprise SaaS governance platform, targeting highly regulated industries. The founders argue that robust trust and oversight mechanisms will be critical for large-scale AI adoption, positioning the company to become a European standard-setter in AI control.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Jan 2026