Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, has officially closed a record-breaking $2 billion seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, a company spokesperson confirmed on Monday.
The round, which included high-profile investors such as Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street, values the startup at $12 billion. This marks a sharp increase from earlier reports in June, which indicated the company was nearing a close at a $10 billion valuation.
This deal is one of the largest seed-stage funding rounds in Silicon Valley history and underscores the immense investor demand for promising new AI ventures. Despite being less than a year old, Thinking Machines Lab has already positioned itself as a serious contender in the competitive AI landscape—even though it has yet to publicly release a product.
On Tuesday, Murati offered a brief preview of the company’s plans via a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the team will unveil its first offering in the “next couple months.” The product will feature a “significant open source component” and be designed to assist researchers and startups in building customized AI models.
“We’ll soon share our best scientific work to help the research community better understand frontier AI systems,” Murati added.
It remains unclear whether this open-source element will include a full AI model release, as competitors like Mistral and Meta have done to differentiate themselves from OpenAI. A spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab declined to provide further details.
Since its inception, Thinking Machines Lab has attracted several high-profile former OpenAI employees, including John Schulman, Barret Zoph, and Luke Metz. According to the company’s website, it is actively hiring individuals with experience in building AI products “from the ground up.”
Meta reportedly explored acquiring Thinking Machines Lab to strengthen its superintelligence initiatives, though discussions did not lead to a formal offer.
The startup is among a select group of emerging AI labs that investors believe could challenge the dominance of current leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind. With billions in fresh capital, Thinking Machines Lab may have the resources necessary to train advanced AI models at scale. It has also secured a partnership with Google Cloud to power its computing infrastructure.
Still, the path ahead is steep. Competing with the entrenched research and development efforts of tech giants will require not only significant funding but also novel scientific breakthroughs—an increasingly difficult feat in today’s fast-moving AI race.
