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Thinking Machines Lab Seeks New Funding at Roughly $40 Billion Valuation

September 5, 2026 at 13:23 EDT

Funding & M&A
Foundation Models

Thinking Machines Lab, the San Francisco AI company founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is in talks to raise at least $1 billion at a valuation of roughly $40 billion, less than two years after its founding, and is generating at least a few hundred million dollars in annualized revenue.

September 2026 · Thinking Machines Lab

Fresh capital talks at $40 billion

Mira Murati’s AI lab is seeking a new round at a roughly $40 billion valuation, less than two years after founding, with annualized revenue already in the hundreds of millions.

$40B

Proposed valuation

$1B+

Raise in talks

$12B

July 2025 seed mark

100s of M

Annualized revenue

Valuation, drawn to scale

Each block is $4 billion. The $12 billion seed is 3 blocks; the $40 billion talks are 10 blocks — more than a 3× step-up.

$12B

Seed (Jul 2025)

$40B

Talks (Sep 2026)

Still below last year’s $50B-plus ask, which did not close.

Path to this raise

Founded Feb 2025

Murati leaves OpenAI and starts the lab.

→

$2B seed at $12B

Andreessen Horowitz leads a record seed.

→

Tinker, then Inkling

Fine-tuning API plus a 975B open-weight model.

→

$40B talks

Accel in talks to lead; Nvidia has discussed joining.

What supporters cite

Tinker is in use for real fine-tuning jobs, Inkling is out with open weights, and annualized revenue is already in the hundreds of millions — a different story than the productless 2025 seed.

What critics cite

The multiple on early sales is extreme, several co-founders have left, Inkling is not claimed as the strongest model, and a $1B-plus check would cover only part of a gigawatt-scale compute plan.

Talks, not a closed round.

Lead
Accel in talks to lead

Chip partner
Nvidia has discussed joining

Use of funds
Train, rent compute, hire

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