--- alias: - Thinking Machines category: Private Organization created: 2026-06-20 location: San Francisco, California summary: Thinking Machines Lab is the AI research company Mira Murati founded in 2025 with a team drawn heavily from OpenAI, including John Schulman, Barret Zoph, and adviser Bob McGrew, which raised a roughly 2-billion-dollar seed round at a 12-billion valuation reported as one of the largest seed rounds ever. tags: - Organization - ThinkingMachinesLab - MiraMurati - OpenAI - ArtificialIntelligence - VentureCapital updated: 2026-06-20 --- Thinking Machines Lab is an artificial-intelligence research company founded by [Mira Murati](/people/mira-murati/), the former chief technology officer of [OpenAI](/organizations/openai/), which emerged from stealth in February 2025. Its founding team and early staff were drawn heavily from OpenAI, including the cofounder and reinforcement-learning pioneer [John Schulman](/people/john-schulman/) as chief scientist and the research executive Barret Zoph as chief technology officer, with the former OpenAI chief research officer Bob McGrew joining as an adviser. In July 2025 the company closed a seed round of roughly 2 billion dollars at a 12-billion-dollar valuation, a figure widely described as among the largest seed rounds in Silicon Valley history.[^1][^2] ### Founding and the OpenAI Lineage Murati left OpenAI in September 2024 and spent the following months recruiting from the company's senior research ranks. By the time Thinking Machines Lab came out of stealth in February 2025 it had assembled a founding cohort of around 38 people, roughly half of them former OpenAI employees. Beyond Schulman and Zoph, the early staff included Lilian Weng, Andrew Tulloch, and Luke Metz, all OpenAI researchers, and the roster reflected a broader migration of post-training and alignment talent out of OpenAI in 2024 and 2025. Schulman had himself left OpenAI for [Anthropic](/organizations/anthropic/) in August 2024 before joining Murati's lab.[^2][^3] The company positioned itself around making advanced AI more customizable and more understandable, with Murati saying it would share scientific work to help the research community grasp how frontier systems behave. She told investors and press that the lab would unveil its first product within months and would include "a significant open source offering" aimed at researchers and startups building their own models. In April 2025 the lab added several prominent former OpenAI figures as advisers, among them Bob McGrew, who had been OpenAI's chief research officer until September 2024, and the former OpenAI researcher Alec Radford.[^3][^4] ### The Seed Round and Investors In July 2025 Thinking Machines Lab raised approximately 2 billion dollars in a seed round that valued the company at 12 billion dollars, up from a 10-billion figure reported in June. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street. Raising 2 billion dollars at the seed stage, before any product, placed the deal among the largest initial financings ever recorded in the venture industry.[^1][^5] Meta Platforms reportedly explored an acquisition of the company before any formal offer materialized, and Google Cloud signed on to supply infrastructure for the lab's models. By early 2026 Bloomberg reported that Thinking Machines Lab was in talks for a new round that would value it near 50 billion dollars, even as the company faced the same talent competition it had drawn from: in January 2026 two of its cofounders were reported to be returning to OpenAI.[^5][^6] [^1]: "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round," *TechCrunch,* July 15, 2025, on the roughly 2-billion seed round, the 12-billion valuation, the Andreessen Horowitz lead, the Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street participation, and the open-source plans. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round/ [^2]: "OpenAI cofounder John Schulman is joining Mira Murati's startup after brief stint at Anthropic," *Fortune,* February 6, 2025, on the founding, Schulman as chief scientist, and the OpenAI-derived team. https://www.fortune.com/2025/02/06/openai-john-schulman-mira-muratis-startup-anthropic [^3]: "Inside Thinking Machines Lab, Mira Murati's New AI Startup," Built In, on the February 2025 launch, the 38-person founding cohort, the OpenAI lineage, and the cofounders including Barret Zoph, Lilian Weng, Andrew Tulloch, and Luke Metz. https://builtin.com/articles/what-is-thinking-machines-lab [^4]: "OpenAI's former chief research officer joins Mira Murati's AI startup," reporting on Bob McGrew joining as an adviser in March 2025 and his prior role as OpenAI chief research officer. *TechCrunch,* April 8, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/mira-muratis-ai-startup-gains-prominent-ex-openai-advisers [^5]: "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Hits $12B Valuation in Seed Round," Financial IT, on the valuation rise from 10 to 12 billion, the investor roster, and the Meta acquisition interest and Google Cloud infrastructure. https://financialit.net/news/fundraising-news/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-hits-12b-valuation-seed-round [^6]: "Mira Murati's startup Thinking Machines Lab is losing two of its co-founders to OpenAI," *TechCrunch,* January 14, 2026, on the near-50-billion valuation talks and the cofounder departures. https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/mira-muratis-startup-thinking-machines-lab-is-losing-two-of-its-co-founders-to-openai