Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is in talks to raise at least $1 billion at a pre-money valuation of $40 billion or more, according to a report by the Information1. The figure falls below the $50 billion-plus valuation the company sought late last year2.
Existing backer Accel is in talks to lead the round, according to TechCrunch and the Information's reporting. Neither Accel nor Thinking Machines Lab responded to TechCrunch's request for comment.
Thinking Machines Lab's annual revenue run rate stands at over $100 million, according to a source cited by TechCrunch with knowledge of the company's financials. At a $40 billion valuation against that revenue figure, the round would reflect an extraordinarily high revenue multiple.
The company's prior fundraise was a $2 billion round, one of the largest seed financings on record, that valued Thinking Machines Lab at $12 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led that investment, joined by Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed, and Conviction Partners.
In July, Thinking Machines Lab introduced Inkling, an open-weight model that generates revenue through usage-based compute fees for adapting models on proprietary data via its Tinker platform.
ANALYSIS The valuation markdown from $50 billion-plus to $40 billion-plus, even as the company moves from a $12 billion post-seed valuation to a substantially higher figure, indicates that the fundraising environment has applied some pricing discipline since the company's initial target. The gap between $100 million-plus in annual revenue run rate and a $40 billion valuation nonetheless places the round's economics in territory associated with frontier AI labs rather than conventional enterprise software companies.
Murati founded Thinking Machines Lab early last year after departing OpenAI, where she served as chief technology officer. TechCrunch reported that some early team members, including Lilian Weng and Luke Metz, have since returned to OpenAI.