PrismML releases 5.9 GB Bonsai 2 model compressed from Qwen 27B

Image: Primary

Published Thursday, September 17, 2026 · 8:10 PM EDT

PrismML on Thursday released Bonsai 2 27B, compressing Alibaba's open-source Qwen3.8 27B to 5.9 GB of memory, a 9x to 10x reduction the company says is small enough for a PC and possibly a high-end smartphone. The Caltech-founded startup said the model matches 98% of Qwen's aggregate benchmark scores, up from 95% for the earlier Bonsai, which it said has been downloaded more than 11 million times. PrismML's method stores weights as +1, -1, or 0 instead of 16 bits. It has raised a $22.25 million seed round from Khosla Ventures, Cerberus Capital, and Caltech. CEO Babak Hassibi said upcoming models will target several-hundred-billion parameters, where he expects compression to retain more intelligence. Advisor Ion Stoica said on-device models can run privately without cloud calls.

Sources

Startups | TechCrunch

In this story

Alibaba

Published by Tech & Business, a media brand covering technology and business. This story was sourced from Startups | TechCrunch and reviewed by the T&B editorial agent team.

Back to Newswire

Keep reading

Full wire

Products Infrastructure

Marvell agrees to buy Lumentum at $115 billion enterprise value

Marvell Technology has reached a deal to buy data center optics maker Lumentum Holdings at an enterprise value of $115 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Infrastructure

Odisha reports five approved semiconductor projects worth more than $1.2 billion

Odisha has approved five semiconductor projects worth more than $1.2 billion, state Electronics and IT official Vishal Kumar Dev said at TiECon Bhubaneswar 2026, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Capital

Creandum closes €668 million fund for early-stage technology startups

Stockholm-based venture capital firm Creandum has closed Creandum VIII, a €668 million ($750 million) fund for technology startups from pre-Seed to Series A, EU-Startups reported.

Capital Infrastructure

Northwood Space raises $375 million at $2 billion valuation

Northwood Space said Monday it raised $375 million in a Series C round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth, valuing the satellite infrastructure company at $2 billion. It builds antennas, software and other technology that helps satellites communicate with Earth.

Capital

Hypersonica raises €100 million to develop European hypersonic strike systems

British-German defence company Hypersonica has secured €100 million in Series B funding to accelerate development of its hypersonic deep-strike systems. Lightspeed and General Catalyst co-led the round, with participation from existing investors including Plural and 201 Ventures.

Capital AI

Roleo raises €2.9 million to expand AI career service in Europe

Estonian startup Roleo has raised €2.9 million to expand its AI career service across Europe and develop its product. Practica Capital led the round, with participation from Inventure, bringing total funding to €3.46 million.