21.06.2025 15:50
Mira Murati's newly founded AI venture, Thinking Machines Lab, has secured a staggering $2 billion seed round, catapulting its valuation to an impressive $10 billion in just six months. This remarkable feat, achieved without a publicly released product, prototype, or even a detailed business plan, represents one of the largest early-stage funding rounds in Silicon Valley history – a truly exceptional accomplishment.
The funding round was spearheaded by Andreessen Horowitz, with notable participation from Conviction Partners, led by Sarah Guo, as reported by the Financial Times. This unprecedented investment underscores Murati's strong reputation and the immense confidence investors have in her vision, despite the company's lack of tangible deliverables. Essentially, Murati's track record proved sufficient to attract this massive capital injection.
Further bolstering Thinking Machines' impressive credentials is its recruitment of a substantial team of former OpenAI employees. Key hires include co-founder John Schulman, special projects leader Jonathan Lachman, and former vice presidents Barret Zoph and Lilian Weng. These individuals, all previously colleagues of Murati at OpenAI, bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the venture.
Their prior collaborative experience with Murati at OpenAI is significant. Murati's tenure there saw her spearhead the development of key technologies such as ChatGPT, the Dall-E image generation tool, and the recently introduced voice features. Before OpenAI, she held a product management role at Tesla, overseeing the Model X. Her departure from OpenAI in September 2023, just weeks before the attempted ouster of CEO Sam Altman, was far from subtle; sources suggest she was among the executives who voiced concerns about Altman's leadership prior to the November boardroom upheaval, even briefly serving as interim CEO before Altman's reinstatement. Now, at Thinking Machines, she commands complete control, wielding significant voting power on the board following this substantial funding round.
