In a striking demonstration of investor confidence in AI talent, Thinking Machines Lab has secured $2 billion in seed funding, valuing the secretive startup at $10 billion just six months after its founding.
The company, established in February 2025 by former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, has accomplished this remarkable feat without publicly revealing specific products or revenue plans. Andreessen Horowitz led the funding round, with participation from Accel and Conviction Partners, among other investors. According to reports, the minimum investment required to participate was $50 million.
Murati, who left OpenAI last September after leading development of ChatGPT, DALL-E, and other breakthrough AI systems, has assembled an impressive team of AI researchers. Several former OpenAI colleagues have joined her venture, including co-founder John Schulman, who previously helped develop ChatGPT. The company now employs approximately 41 team members, many recruited from leading AI organizations including Meta, Google DeepMind, and Mistral.
Thinking Machines Lab describes its mission as making "AI systems more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable." The company emphasizes human-AI collaboration, focusing on building multimodal systems that work with people rather than fully autonomous AI. "We're building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals," the company states on its website.
This funding deal reflects the enormous appetite for AI startups with proven leadership, even without established products. It follows other massive early-stage investments in AI, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever's $1 billion raise for Safe Superintelligence. The deal also aligns with Andreessen Horowitz's broader AI investment strategy, as the firm reportedly seeks to raise a $20 billion AI-focused megafund.
For Murati, who briefly served as OpenAI's interim CEO during Sam Altman's temporary ouster in November 2023, this investment provides substantial resources to pursue her vision of more flexible, adaptable, and personalized AI systems without immediate financial constraints.