Mira Murati’s AI Startup Thinking Machine Lab emerges from stealth at $20 billion seed and $1 billion valuation

Mira Murati, former CTO at Openai, raised $2 billion for its new AI venture, Thinking Machines Lab, just six months after its launch. The eye-opening round round values ​​the company at $10 billion. That’s a huge number for startups that are still in their early stages.

The deal, first reported by the Financial Times, is one of the largest seed rounds in Silicon Valley history. With participation from Sarah Guo’s conviction partner, the Rais, led by Andreessen Horowitz, doubled the company’s original $1 billion target. Investors had to commit at least $50 million to participate, according to Business Insider.

The news comes just two months after Business Insider reported that startups were targeting $2 billion in salary increases. That’s twice the amount Murati said he wanted four months ago, when he was aiming for $1 billion at a $9 billion valuation.

Mira Murati’s Thinking Machine Lab is collecting $20 billion seeds to take on Openai and humanity

Thinking Machines Lab came out from Stealth in February 2025. Since then, it has attracted great interest, mainly because Murati’s accomplishments and talent have been added to her. The focus of startups is on building AI systems that are more “widely understood, customizable, and generally competent” according to the blog. The company says it wants to bridge the key gap in today’s frontier model, prioritizing how people and AI work together in areas such as science and engineering.

Murati knows this space very well. During Openai, she led the development of projects such as ChatGpt, Dall-E, Codex, and other models behind GitHub’s Copilot. She also briefly served as Openai’s interim CEO during the 2023 upheaval, during which Sam Altman was temporarily kicked out. Her credibility and vision are a big part of attracting investors to this new project.

The team she put together is equally noteworthy. John Schulman, co-founder and co-creator of ChatGpt, is the Chief Scientist. Barret Zoph, former Vice President of Research at Openai, is CTO. Other important recruits include Jonathan Luckman, Lillian Wen, Luke Metz, Sam Schleifer and Stephen Lawler. Researchers from Deepmind, Meta, Cargetwy and Mistral AI are also involved. The advisor list includes Bob McGrew and Alec Radford. Both are key figures for Openai’s early breakthroughs.

This flood of talent will be in the same category as other early-stage heavyweight AI companies like Safe Superintelligence, as well as a billion-dollar startup led by Openai co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Investors are clearly putting a bigger bet on people than products, especially when those people are already shaping the AI ​​landscape.

That said, not everyone is sure that mathematics will be summed.

The $10 billion valuation of a company with no public products or revenues raises doubts about whether the current AI boom is sustainable or another bubble in disguise. But for many VCs, mathematics is not about revenue. It’s about risk and rewards. Early bets pay off many times when Murati startups become categories-defining companies. That’s the “power low” logic that drives a huge portion of AI funds today.

There is also the issue of cost. Building next-generation models is not cheap. Training large systems and hiring top talent requires serious capital. In that sense, $2 billion is not about runways, not about table stakes.

Already raising eyebrows: Company governance structure. Information reports Murati is voting for the board with more weight than all other supervisors combined. Founded shareholders also count more than 100 times more than other stocks. Such controls may help protect the company’s direction, but also invite questions about transparency and surveillance, especially in sectors where regulatory pressures are increasing.

Add another layer of plot: Wikipedia points out that the Albanian government joined the funding round and perhaps nodded to Murati’s legacy. If confirmed, this is a rare example of a central government in favour of Silicon Valley AI startups, and could suggest a wider global interest in AI racing.

Whose guesses is this all going to go? Thinking Machines Lab has cash, talent and spotlight. The next challenge is to turn it all into a product that people actually use, and prove that it stands out in a crowded, hype-fueled space.

For now, Murati’s venture is one of the boldest bets of the AI ​​boom. It depends on whether it will be the next Openai or just another footnote comes next.