{"id":180868,"date":"2025-07-15T17:59:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T17:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/15\/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T17:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T17:59:29","slug":"mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/15\/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by OpenAI\u2019s former chief technology officer Mira Murati, officially closed a $2 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz on Monday, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

The deal, which includes participation from NVIDIA, Accel, ServiceNow, CISCO, AMD, and Jane Street, values the startup at $12 billion, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Several outlets reported in June that Thinking Machines Lab was close to closing this $2B funding round at a $10 billion valuation<\/a>, but, apparently, that valuation has shot up in the last month.<\/p>\n

The deal marks one of the largest seed rounds \u2014 or first funding rounds \u2014 in Silicon Valley history, representing the massive investor appetite to back promising new AI labs. Thinking Machines Lab is less than a year old and has yet to reveal what it\u2019s working on.<\/p>\n

However, Murati peeled back the curtain on the company\u2019s first product a bit in a post on X Tuesday, claiming that the startup plans to unveil its work in the \u201cnext couple months,\u201d and it will include a \u201csignificant open source offering.\u201d Murati also said the product will be useful for researchers and startups building custom AI models.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon, we\u2019ll also share our best science to help the research community better understand frontier AI systems,\u201d said Murati.<\/p>\n

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Thinking Machines Lab exists to empower humanity through advancing collaborative general intelligence.<\/p>\n

We’re building multimodal AI that works with how you naturally interact with the world \u2013 through conversation, through sight, through the messy way we collaborate. We’re\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mira Murati (@miramurati) July 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s unclear if Murati means that Thinking Machines Lab will release an open AI model, as some of OpenAI\u2019s other competitors have done to undercut the ChatGPT-maker\u2019s offerings. A Thinking Machines Lab spokesperson declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

Since Murati launched her venture, Thinking Machines Lab has attracted some of her former coworkers at OpenAI, including John Schulman, Barret Zoph, and Luke Metz. Murati says her company is currently trying to staff up, specifically for people with a track record of \u201cbuilding successful AI-driven products from the ground up,\u201d according to the startup\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meta reportedly held talks to acquire Thinking Machines Lab <\/a>in recent months to bolster its superintelligence efforts, but they didn\u2019t progress to a final offer.<\/p>\n

Thinking Machines Lab is one of a handful of AI startups that investors believe to be a legitimate threat to leading AI model developers today, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind.<\/p>\n

With billions in funding, Murati may have enough of a war chest to train frontier AI models. Thinking Machines Lab previously struck a deal with Google Cloud<\/a> to power its AI models.<\/p>\n

Surely, Thinking Machines Lab has an uphill battle to catch up with other AI labs. It\u2019s likely banking on novel research breakthroughs to set it apart; however, that\u2019s an increasingly difficult task as Meta, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and OpenAI invest billions in their own research teams.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n