Mira Murati has just completed a $2 billion seed round for his new artificial intelligence company, Thinking Machines Lab, valuing the company at $10 billion despite only being in existence for six months and not having announced any products or roadmaps.
The transaction just closed, and according to sources familiar with the matter, it is one of the largest seed rounds ever in Silicon Valley. This is not only rare, but almost unprecedented in the history of startup investing.
The San Francisco-based startup has yet to launch a product, has no prototype, and hasn't even provided a clear roadmap for investors.
But this round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with support from Sarah Guo through Conviction Partners, the Financial Times reports. There was no business model, no demo, no Prediction — just Mira and her reputation. And strangely enough, that was enough to convince investors to put their money down.
Thinking Machines Hires Former OpenAI Employees Without Specific Product Details
The company has hired several familiar names from OpenAI, including co-founder John Schulman, special projects lead Jonathan Lachman, and former vice presidents Barret Zoph and Lilian Weng. These individuals all worked with Mira at OpenAI before she left in September 2023, just weeks before OpenAI attempted to replace CEO Sam Altman.
At OpenAI, Mira led projects like ChatGPT, the Dall-E image generator, and new voice capabilities before she left. She also previously served as a product manager at Tesla for the Model X. She was not shy, and she showed her determination.
People close to her said Mira was among the executives who questioned Altman’s role in the leadership crisis at OpenAI before a failed board coup in November. She was even named interim CEO before Altman returned to the full-time position.
She now serves as a board member at Thinking Machines. After the new round of funding, she will have more voting power on the board than all other directors combined, giving her complete control over strategic decisions, according to The Information, which first revealed the voting structure.
Investors back Mira's name despite no clear product or plan
Mira raised billions of dollars without a product, pitch deck, or concrete technology. She didn’t even disclose financial numbers during her presentation. One investor said she didn’t present a financial plan or corporate structure during her pitch, and found the entire process too secretive.
Thinking Machines may be aiming to build general artificial intelligence, where machines can think and reason like humans or better, the people who pitched it said. But they also admitted that the team is still in the strategy phase, not really building a specific product — they’re just figuring out how to do it.
“The founding team is small but incredibly smart,” said one risk-taking investor. “The current team Mira has assembled is impressive.” It’s the kind of vague confidence that can only exist in a place where $2 billion can be poured in without a tangible product.
In February, Thinking Machines posted a message saying it wanted to make AI “more ubiquitous, more customizable, and more capable.” That was the only public statement it made. Since then, there have been no updates to its website, product launches, or experiments.
Mira isn’t the only one raising money without showing tangible results, however. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever raised $2 billion in April for his company Safe Superintelligence, valuing it at $32 billion. These startups all have no products yet, but unlike Mira, Sutskever doesn’t have voting power over board members.
So far, Thinking Machines Lab has not announced a launch date or specific projects. The only things it has publicly disclosed are Mira’s name, its team of former OpenAI employees, and a $2 billion reserve budget to keep it going. Investors have pushed back for more details, but the team has received enthusiastic support without a real product.
Source: https://tintucbitcoin.com/mira-murati-lab-ai-dinh-gia-10-ty/
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