Thinking Machines, the artificial intelligence startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, is reportedly in talks to raise funding at a valuation of as much as $60 billion.
Bloomberg reported Thursday (Nov. 13) that unnamed sources said that the talks are in their early stages and that the valuation could be $50 billion, $55 billion or $60 billion.
Those figures would more than quadruple Thinking Machines’ $12 billion valuation from July, when it raised $2 billion, according to the report.
The deal has not been finalized, and the terms could change, per the report.
Thinking Machines did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
Murati announced in February that she and a team of scientists, engineers and builders had started Thinking Machines Lab.
In a Feb. 18 post on X, Murati said the company would help people adapt AI systems to meet their specific needs, develop foundations to build more capable AI systems, and foster a culture of open science aimed at helping the whole field understand and improve AI systems.
“Our goal is simple, advance AI by making it broadly useful and understandable through solid foundations, open science and practical applications,” Murati wrote in the post.
When Thinking Machines raised $2 billion in July, the company said it would use the funding to support its mission of building “multimodal” AI.
“We’re excited that in the next couple months we’ll be able to share our first product, which will include a significant open source component and be useful for researchers and startups developing custom models,” Murati wrote in a July 15 post on X.
Thinking Machines released its first product, Tinker, in October. The company said Tinker is a training application programming interface (API) that gives organizations full control over model training and fine-tuning while Thinking Machines manages the underlying infrastructure.
Before founding Thinking Machines, Murati spent 6.5 years at OpenAI, most recently as the company’s chief technology officer. She served as OpenAI’s interim CEO for a time in November 2023, when co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was briefly ousted by the company’s board. Murati announced her departure from OpenAI in September 2024.
While at OpenAI, Murati played a crucial role in launching products like ChatGPT and DALL-E, PYMNTS reported in October 2024.
Source: https://www.pymnts.com/
