A16z eyes leading mega round in former OpenAI CTO’s startup Thinking Machines, sources say
作者：By Anna Tong and Krystal HuApril 11, 202510:16 PM UTCUpdated ago
AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
- Thinking Machines Lab to be valued at $10 billion despite no revenue or products
- Andreessen Horowitz raising $20 billion megafund for AI investments
- Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital in talks to fund Thinking Machines, source says
- Murati's team includes former OpenAI talent, boosting startup's credibility
SAN FRANCISCO, April 11 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to lead an outsized early stage funding round of former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati's startup, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
The startup, named Thinking Machines Lab, could be valued at $10 billion in the round, sources said, making it one of the most valuable AI startups in the world, despite only launching in February. The company, which has no revenue or products yet, is the latest entrant into the crowded space of companies building generative AI models. Thinking Machines has said it wants to build artificial intelligence systems that are safer, more reliable and aimed at a broader number of applications than rivals.
Sign up here.
Reuters couldn't learn how much Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in this round. Business Insider reported earlier this week the final amount of the entire round could be close to $2 billion. Another VC heavyweight, Sequoia Capital, is also in talks to join the funding round, another source said.
Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment. Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The reception shows that investor enthusiasm toward new startups in AI remains extremely high, despite some questions about tech industry spending. An initial round of this size is not unprecedented: In September, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever raised
$1 billion, opens new tabbased on his reputation in the field.
Andreessen Horowitz, known as A16z, has made big bets in AI, backing competitors to AI heavyweight OpenAI. It has participated in large funding rounds for AI model startups including Elon Musk's xAI, Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence and France-based Mistral. It is currently raising a $20 billion megafund dedicated to later-stage investments in AI companies. If successfully raised, it would be the largest fund in the firm's history.
Murati announced Thinking Machines Lab in February with a team of around 30 leading AI researchers and engineers, two-thirds of whom were former OpenAI employees, showing Murati's ability to poach her previous employer's top talent. Since then, other former prominent OpenAI employees have joined Thinking Machines as advisers, including OpenAI's former chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and the lead researcher for many of OpenAI's flagship AI models, Alec Radford.
At OpenAI, Murati spent over six years spearheading transformative projects like ChatGPT and DALL-E, and was a key figure in OpenAI's multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft
(MSFT.O), opens new tab, its largest financial backer. She frequently appeared alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as the public face of the ChatGPT maker.
Her abrupt resignation in September last year was part of a slew of high-profile exits from OpenAI, and she joined a growing list of former OpenAI executives launching rival startups, such as Dario Amodei's Anthropic and Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence.
Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Peter Henderson and Lisa Shumaker
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Anna Tong is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where she reports on the technology industry. She joined Reuters in 2023 after working at the San Francisco Standard as a data editor. Tong previously worked at technology startups as a product manager and at Google where she worked in user insights and helped run a call center. Tong graduated from Harvard University.
Krystal reports on venture capital and startups for Reuters. She covers Silicon Valley and beyond through the lens of money and characters, with a focus on growth-stage startups, tech investments and AI. She has previously covered M&A for Reuters, breaking stories on Trump's SPAC and Elon Musk's Twitter financing. Previously, she reported on Amazon for Yahoo Finance, and her investigation of the company's retail practice was cited by lawmakers in Congress. Krystal started a career in journalism by writing about tech and politics in China. She has a master's degree from New York University, and enjoys a scoop of Matcha ice cream as much as getting a scoop at work.
关于《A16z eyes leading mega round in former OpenAI CTO’s startup Thinking Machines, sources say》的评论
暂无评论