Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Hits $12 B Valuation in Oversubscribed Seed Round
Thinking Machines, the year-old venture founded by ex-OpenAI chief technologist Mira Murati, has landed $650 million in seed capital at a $12 billion post-money valuation, people familiar with the deal said Thursday. The round—co-led by Sequoia Capital and Coatue with participation from Nvidia, Samsung Catalyst and sovereign fund ADQ—marks the largest single early-stage raise ever for a deep-tech company, eclipsing Anthropic’s 2022 debut.
Murati told investors the company is building custom “memory-first” AI processors and an accompanying software stack that promises tenfold gains in energy efficiency for large-language-model inference. Prototypes are already sampling at two undisclosed hyperscale data-center operators, and the fresh funding will bankroll a 5-nanometre tape-out with TSMC plus a 250-petaflop pilot cluster slated to go live in Q2 2026.
The meteoric valuation underscores how aggressively capital is hunting for differentiated AI hardware as model sizes explode and energy grids strain. Analysts say Thinking Machines’ tie-up with Nvidia—both investor and strategic partner—could fast-track adoption if benchmarks hold up, but caution that the startup must navigate fierce competition from Cerebras, Groq and Intel’s Gaudi roadmap.
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