Accel in Talks to Lead $1B Round for Thinking Machines at $40B Valuation
aiinsider ·
AI lab Thinking Machines, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, with existing investor Accel expected to lead the round. This would be lower than the roughly $50 billion valuation the company reportedly sought late last year. According to a source, the company's annual revenue run rate exceeds $100 million, which would make the reported valuation an unusually high multiple of revenue. In July, Thinking Machines released Inkling, an open-weight model that generates revenue through usage-based compute fees for customizing models on proprietary data via its Tinker platform. The startup's previous fundraising, a $2 billion round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed, and Conviction Partners, valued the company at $12 billion. Since then, several high-profile team members have departed, including co-founders Lilian Weng and Luke Metz, who both returned to OpenAI. Accel and Thinking Machines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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