Record-Breaking $2B Seed Funding for Mira Murati’s AI Startup, Thinking Machines Lab
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has successfully secured a monumental $2 billion seed funding round for her AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. The startup is now valued at a staggering $12 billion. The funding round was spearheaded by Andreessen Horowitz, and saw participation from major investors including Nvidia, AMD, Accel, ServiceNow, CISCO, and Jane Street.
Murati, who briefly held the position of interim CEO of OpenAI during Sam Altman’s temporary departure, has announced that the company is set to unveil its first product in the forthcoming months. The startup is focused on developing multimodal AI that seamlessly interacts with humans through conversation and sight.
Several of Murati’s former colleagues from OpenAI have joined her in this venture. This includes research executive Barret Zoph, who has taken on the role of CTO, and co-founder John Schulman.
This funding round is one of the largest seed rounds in the history of Silicon Valley, underscoring the immense investor interest in promising AI ventures. The company’s mission is to create AI that acts as “an extension of individual agency”. It also plans to incorporate open source components for the benefit of researchers.
Source: www.cnbc.com