Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is reportedly attempting to raise a $2 billion seed funding round. If realised, this would make it one of the largest seed rounds in startup history.
The company has doubled its initial fundraising target and is now aiming to secure a valuation of at least $10 billion, Business Insider reported.
The move has caught the attention of the tech and investment industries, especially considering that Thinking Machines Lab only recently came out of stealth and currently has no public product or revenue.
AIM had previously spoken with Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures to discuss whether the current state of AI funding is grounded in reality. Das mentioned that VCs are eager to make substantial bets on companies founded by former employees of OpenAI, Anthropic or DeepMind, as they believe these individuals might discover something that current labs might not.
“In a private market, especially in early-stage venture capital, you barely have revenue numbers, and you’re making a bet on the team, the market and their ability to execute,” he had said.
Despite its early stage, the startup has attracted a number of high-profile figures from the AI research community, including the company’s chief scientist John Schulman and chief technology officer Barret Zoph—both of whom are former OpenAI employees.
Nearly half of the company’s 30 listed staff members previously worked at OpenAI alongside others from Mistral, Meta, and DeepMind.
Headquartered in San Francisco, the startup is focused on building multimodal models for text and images, with a focus on human collaboration.
During its launch, Murati revealed that the company is trying to develop strong foundations to build more capable AI systems and foster a culture of open science that will help the whole field understand and improve these systems.
