The fundraise also saw participation from AI chip giant Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD and Jane Street, the startup said. The massive funding round for a company launched only in February, with no revenue or products yet, underscores Murati’s ability to attract investors in a sector where top executives have become coveted targets in an escalating talent war.
“We’re excited that in the next couple months we will be able to share our first product, which will include a significant open source component and be useful for researchers and startups developing custom model,” said its CEO Murati in a post on the Twitter.
The deal marks one of the largest seed rounds — or first funding rounds — 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’s working on.
Since Murati launched her venture, Thinking Machines Lab has attracted some of her former co-workers 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 “building successful AI-driven products from the ground up,” according to the startup’s website.
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. It’s been two months since the company announced that Murati’s origin country Albania will invest 10 million dollars in Machine Thinking Lab as well.
