Thinking Machines Lab Raises $20B, Valued at $120B, Led by Andreessen Horowitz

Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded by the former CTO of OpenAI, has successfully raised 20 billion dollars in seed funding, valuing the company at 120 billion dollars. This significant investment round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with notable participants including NVIDIA, AMD, Accel, and Jane Street. The company's specific business operations remain shrouded in mystery, but it has already begun recruiting top talent from industry giants such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Mistral.

The former CTO of OpenAI, who is also the founder of Thinking Machines Lab, has an impressive background in the AI industry. As a key figure at OpenAI, this individual was instrumental in the development of core products like ChatGPT, the Dall-E image generator, and voice models. During the 2023 boardroom shakeup, this person briefly took over as interim CEO. Prior to joining OpenAI, this individual served as a senior product manager at Tesla, contributing to the development of the Model X vehicle.

This individual left OpenAI in September of this year, citing a desire to explore personal projects. The substantial investment in Thinking Machines Lab underscores the confidence of major industry players in the company's potential. NVIDIA and AMD, as key suppliers of AI chips, are betting on the future of AI hardware. Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm, has been actively investing in AI and decentralized finance startups since 2020. Andreessen Horowitz, a long-time supporter of tech startups, has further bolstered market confidence in the project with its leadership in this funding round.

Thinking Machines Lab plans to launch its product within the next few months, which will include open-source components aimed at helping researchers and startups develop customized AI models. The company is focused on building a "multimodal AI" that interacts with the world in a natural, human-like manner, through conversation, visuals, and complex collaboration. The aggressive recruitment drive and the high-profile investor lineup indicate that Thinking Machines Lab is poised for rapid growth and innovation in the AI sector.