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Mira Murati, former Chief Technology Officer of Openai, has raised $2 billion for a new artificial intelligence startup.
The deal, which recently closed, was one of the largest “seed” or early funding rounds in Silicon Valley history, according to multiple people familiar with the deal.
San Francisco-based Thinking Machine Lab has not declared it is working on and instead uses Murati’s name and reputation to attract investors, said those familiar with fundraising.
Andreessen Horowitz said he led the round and has knowledge of the transaction, along with participation from Sarah Guo’s conviction partner.
The fundraising demonstrates the desire of huge investors for AI and the faith in the vision of the founders to compete in things like Openai and humanity, as well as the remarkable founder’s vision to compete with the big players of Google and Meta.
Murati, 36, left Openai in September to facilitate the creation of products such as ChatGpt, Image-Generator Dall-E and its audio modes. She was also Tesla’s senior product manager, where she worked on Model X.
Those with knowledge of the issue said she was one of the executives who had concerns about Sam Altman’s leadership before the board’s coup failed to oust Openry’s chief executive in November 2023.
Thinking Machines hired many Openai employees, including co-founder John Schulman, former director of former special project Jonathan Lachman, former vice presidents Barret Zoph and Lilian Weng.
“There’s a true finite group of founders, and there are incredibly smart people,” one investor said. “It’s convincing that the team (Murati) pulled along with them.”
However, there was little information about what the company was working on. In February, it said it aimed to “make AI systems more broadly understand, customizable and generally competent.”
Due to its very secret nature, multiple investors approached the many funds Murati pitched to take over the deal. One of these people added that they did not provide information on the Murati pitch with any product or financial planning information.
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Another said it appears to be working on “artificial general information,” a hypothetical point of computers having similar or superior levels of intelligence as humans. However, they added that at this point, the group is still “strategy.”
Following the funding round, Murati will retain the right to vote on the board, combining all other directors, and secure a final say in all important decisions at the company, said those familiar with the deal. The voting structure was first reported by information.
The lack of products also prevented investors from supporting Open’s former co-founder, Ilya Satzkiber.
Thought Machine Lab declined to comment.
