Thinking Machines Lab Inc. is an American

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI)

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...

led by

Mira Murati Ermira "Mira" Murati (born 16 December 1988) is an Albanian business executive. She launched in February 2025 an AI startup called Thinking Machines Lab. She previously served as chief technology officer of OpenAI from May 2022 to September 20 ...

, the former chief technology officer of

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

. The company was founded in February 2025, and by July had already closed on an "outsized early-stage funding round" led by

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

, raising $2 billion at a valuation of $12 billion overall from investors such as

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

, and

Jane Street Jane Street may refer to: * Jane Street (labor organizer) (1887–1966), American union founder * Jane Street Capital, global proprietary trading firm * Jane Street (Toronto), major road in Toronto, Canada * Jane Street Theatre, now The Jane, on Ja ...

. The company is based in

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and structured as a

public benefit corporation Public-benefit corporation may refer to several types of corporate entity: United Kingdom * public benefit corporation, the legal form of NHS foundation trust United States * Benefit corporation or public-benefit corporation, for profit but with ...

History

By its launch in February 2025, Thinking Machines Lab was reported to have hired about 30 researchers and engineers from competitors including

Meta AI Meta AI is a research division of Meta (formerly Facebook) that develops artificial intelligence and augmented reality technologies. History The foundation of laboratory was announced in 2013, under the name Facebook Artificial Intelligence ...

, and

Mistral AI Mistral AI SAS () is a French artificial intelligence (AI) startup, headquartered in Paris. Founded in 2023, it specializes in open-weight large language models (LLMs), with both open-source and proprietary AI models. Namesake The company is ...

. Its founding team members include OpenAI cofounder John Schulman, who joined after a brief stint at the lab's competitor

Anthropic Anthropic PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) startup company founded in 2021. Anthropic has developed a family of large language models (LLMs) named Claude as a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. According to the ...

. Other former OpenAI employees who have been hired include Jonathan Lachman and Barret Zoph. Thinking Machines Lab's advisers include Bob McGrew, previously OpenAI's chief research officer, and Alec Radford, who was a lead researcher for OpenAI.

Business structure

Thinking Machines Lab follows grants Mira Murati a deciding vote on board matters, weighted to provide her with a majority decision-making capability. Additionally, founding shareholders possess votes weighted 100 times greater than those of regular shareholders. In July 2025,

was reported to have lead the company's initial funding round, raising "about $2 billion at a valuation of $12 billion". The government of

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

(Murati's country of origin) was also included in this round, making a $10 million investment which required an amendment to the country's 2025 budget.

References

External links

* {{Generative AI Artificial intelligence companies Artificial intelligence organizations AI software AI safety Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Artificial intelligence laboratories 2025 establishments in California American companies established in 2025 Companies based in San Francisco Public benefit corporations based in California Privately held companies based in California