Jan 6 (Reuters) - LMArena said on Tuesday its valuation had tripled to $1.7 billion in about eight months, following a new funding round where it raised $150 million, as ‌investors continue to pour money into artificial intelligence startups.

Investor enthusiasm ​for generative AI surged after ChatGPT's launch in ‍2022 showed its commercilization potential, leading ⁠to a ⁠race for adoption and a scramble on Wall Street for ‌exposure to key firms ​in the boom.

LMArena, formerly known as Chatbot Arena, is a web-based platform that ⁠allows users to compare ‍large ​language models, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, through anonymous, crowd-sourced evaluations.

"To measure ‍the real utility of AI, we need to put it in the hands of real users. LMArena does exactly this," said Anastasios Angelopoulos, co-founder and CEO of LMArena.

The fundraise ​was ‍co-led by Felicis and UC Investments (University of California), with participation from Silicon Valley giant ​Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Laude Ventures.

LMArena said it will use the fresh capital to operate its platform, expand its technical team and strengthen research capabilities.

In the ​previous funding round in May, the company raised $100 million at the seed-round level, led by a16z and UC Investments.