Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, announced Tuesday that it has raised approximately $2 billion (€1.7 billion) at a valuation of $12 billion.
The investment round was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street also participated in the financing. They support the company’s mission to empower humanity through the development of collaborative general intelligence, the top executive wrote on X.
Thinking Machines is building so-called multimodal AI, which aligns with how humans naturally interact with the world: through language, visual perception, and the often messy processes of collaboration. According to Murati, the company will launch its first product within a few months. It will include an important open source component and will be useful for both researchers and startups working on custom models. In addition, the company aims to share its scientific insights with the broader research community, enabling a deeper understanding of frontier AI systems.
Strong appeal to investors
The fact that a company, founded in February and with no revenue or product yet, is receiving such a large capital injection underscores Murati’s appeal to investors in a sector where top talent is fiercely contested. Reuters reported in April that Andreessen Horowitz was in talks to lead a huge early investment round.
Thinking Machines distinguishes itself by seeking to build AI systems that are safer, more reliable, and more widely deployable than those of its competitors. At the time of its founding, nearly two-thirds of the team consisted of former OpenAI employees.
Murati founded the company after her unexpected departure from OpenAI in September. She is one of a growing group of former top executives from the ChatGPT maker who have started their own AI companies. Dario Amodei’s Anthropic and Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence have also attracted former colleagues and raised billions in funding.
Despite concerns about high spending in the technology sector, investment appetite for AI startups remains strong. This contributed to a nearly 76% increase in US startup funding, which reached $162.8 billion in the first half of 2025. AI accounted for approximately 64.1% of the total deal value, according to a report by Pitchbook.