Dani Yogatama
Dani Yogatama is co-founder and CEO of Reka, an artificial intelligence company, and an associate professor at the University of Southern California. A Monbukagakusho fellowship at the University of Tokyo came before his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, which he completed in 2015 with a dissertation on sparse models of natural language text. At Baidu Silicon Valley AI Lab and then DeepMind, he contributed to DeepSpeech and to AlphaStar, which was rated at Grandmaster level in StarCraft II. A 2021 paper he co-authored on adaptive semiparametric language models appeared in Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Reka emerged from stealth in June 2023 with $58 million in funding, and in 2025 it launched Nexus and raised $110 million.
Timeline
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2008–2010
A fellowship in Tokyo
He joins the University of Tokyo in 2008 as a Monbukagakusho fellow in Tanaka-Ishii's lab.
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2010–2015
Sparse models of natural language text
His PhD at Carnegie Mellon University ends in 2015 with the dissertation Sparse Models of Natural Language Text, advised by Noah Smith.
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2015–2016
Research scientist at Baidu
At Baidu Silicon Valley AI Lab, he joins in 2015 as a research scientist and contributes to DeepSpeech.
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2016–2022
AlphaStar at DeepMind
In 2016 he joins DeepMind as a senior staff research scientist, and he contributes to AlphaStar, which is rated at Grandmaster level in StarCraft II.
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2021
Adaptive semiparametric language models
A 2021 paper he co-authors, Adaptive Semiparametric Language Models, appears in Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics.
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June 2023
Reka emerges from stealth
Reka emerges from stealth in June 2023 with $58 million in funding, led by DST Global Partners and founding investor Radical Ventures.
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March 2025
Nexus, an AI workforce
In March 2025 Reka launches Nexus, an AI workforce powered by its multimodal reasoning model.
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As of October 2026
Co-founder and CEO of Reka
He is co-founder and CEO of Reka and an associate professor at the University of Southern California. Reka, an artificial intelligence company, raises a $110 million funding round from investors including Nvidia and Snowflake in July 2025.
Sources and credits
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- Dani Yogatama
- Dani Yogatama - The Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Generative AI startup Reka emerges from stealth with $58 million in its pocket
- Grandmaster level in StarCraft II using multi-agent reinforcement learning | Nature
- Adaptive Semiparametric Language Models - ACL Anthology
- Reka launches Nexus, an AI workforce powered by its state-of-the-art multimodal reasoning model
- Snowflake, Nvidia Back New Unicorn Reka AI in $110 Million Deal — OODAloop