The financing of Thinking Machines is one of the largest seed rounds ever recorded in Silicon Valley. Previously, Yoga Lab had raised $450 million in seed financing, the largest seed round in history.
Investors willing to join the party had to make a minimum commitment of $50 million. Even so, the round came together in a matter of weeks, according to people familiar with the deal.
Who Wrote the Cheques
Andreessen Horowitz led the round, marking the venture firm’s most aggressive early-stage wager to date. Conviction Partners participated as co-investors alongside Accel and several undisclosed funds.
Adding an international twist, the government of Albania also participated after pushing a budget amendment through parliament.
An OpenAI Alumni Club
Murati’s thirty-person crew is stacked with former colleagues. The startup has assembled a team of approximately 30 researchers, with two-thirds of the team comprising former employees of OpenAI.
OpenAI co-founder John Schulman now serves as Chief Scientist. On the engineering side, Barret Zoph joined as CTO the same day Murati departed OpenAI in September 2024.
Inside the Stealth Mission
According to the company website, Thinking Machines Lab aims to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable. Rather than chasing full autonomy, it focuses on human-AI collaboration via multimodal models designed to work alongside people.
Publicly, that is all the firm will say—no demos, no roadmap, no release dates.
Control Written Into the Charter
Governance favors speed—and Murati. Thinking Machines follows a structure in which Murati holds a deciding vote on the board. Her voting rights are weighted to ensure majority control, and the votes of founding shareholders are weighted 100 times more than those of ordinary shares. The organization is structured as a public benefit corporation, a nod to its stated mission of responsible AI.
Why Talent Is Walking Out the Door
Murati is hardly alone. Approximately 75 former OpenAI employees have launched around 30 AI startups since late 2023. The exodus accelerated after OpenAI’s research shift, which saw pure research roles fall to 4.4 percent of listings last year.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has grown to 3,531 employees from 770 in November 2023, but insiders say morale is fragile.
A Market Awash in Cash
The frenzy around Thinking Machines mirrors a broader cash flood. AI startups raised $59.6 billion globally in Q1 2025, accounting for 53 percent of all venture capital dollars. The first quarter of 2025 saw $22.3 billion allocated to AI deals—nearly double the amount from the same period the previous year.
Through May, the sector has already secured $32.9 billion in funding, nearly matching the combined totals for 2022 and 2023. Heavyweights such as SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, and Tiger Global, which are backing AI, have helped inflate valuations at record speed.
What Comes Next
Murati’s next move is to hire “hundreds” more engineers, according to a person briefed on the plan. Whether that head-count goal or the promised technology lands first is anyone’s guess.
Until then, Silicon Valley has a new litmus test: if $2 billion upfront still counts as “seed,” how big is Series A?
Key Takeaways:
- Thinking Machines Lab raised a record $2 billion seed round at a $10 billion valuation.
- Andreessen Horowitz led the deal, with Conviction Partners, Accel, and even Albania’s government joining in.
- Two-thirds of the 30-person team are former OpenAI staff, including co-founder John Schulman.
- Murati retains iron-clad board control under a public-benefit charter.
- The deal caps a quarter in which AI startups hauled in $59.6 billion worldwide.
- Nearly 75 ex-OpenAI employees have now spun off startups amid a shift away from pure research.