Peter Gostev
AI Capability Lead, Arena
“A model can pass every test you write and still produce something that looks completely awful.” Hear the conversation
1 episode All companies 
Arena
Formerly LMArena (until January 2026), Chatbot Arena (until September 2024)
1 conversation across 1 show.
Meet the people behind the company.
Latest conversation · In The Blink Of AI
How AI Models Are Really Judged, with Peter Gostev (Arena / LMArena)About Arena
Arena (formerly LMArena and, before that, Chatbot Arena) runs a public platform where people compare answers from competing AI models in blind tests and vote for the better one; the votes feed its model leaderboards. It also sells AI Evaluations, a commercial service for model developers and enterprises. Arena began as a UC Berkeley research project in 2023, took its current name in January 2026 and raised a US$200 million Series B in October 2026.
- Business model
- B2B SaaS (AI model evaluation)
- Founders
- Wei-Lin Chiang, Anastasios N. Angelopoulos, Ion Stoica
- Latest round
- US$200M Series B at US$3.1B valuation (October 2026)
Sources: arena.ai, techcrunch.com, techcrunch.com
The people on Day One.
Hear from the team.
Milestones.
- Launched as Chatbot Arena, a UC Berkeley research side projectdailycal.org
- Raised $100M seed at $600M valuation, led by a16z and UC Investmentsbloomberg.com
- Raised $150M Series A at $1.7B valuationtechcrunch.com
In conversation.
Moments from other conversations on the network where Arena comes up.
“My understanding is that as an industry, we typically look at— things change names a couple of times— LM Arena, I think it's called nowadays, or Chatbot Arena.”
In the news.
More companies on Day One.
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correctionUpdated 29 October 2026
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