The number that stopped me cold: $40 billion. Thinking Machines, the AI lab run by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is reportedly in talks to close a $1 billion funding round at that valuation, according to Bloomberg. The company launched less than two years ago. This is not a slow build. This is a wealth transfer happening in real time.
Why This Round Is Different
Mira Murati left OpenAI in late 2024 after nearly seven years, including a stretch as interim CEO during Sam Altman’s brief ouster. She started Thinking Machines Lab shortly after. The company has been building in relative quiet, but this round changes the narrative.
Accel, the venture firm behind Facebook’s early funding and dozens of enterprise software wins, is reportedly leading the deal. According to Bloomberg, the $1 billion raise would make Thinking Machines one of the most valuable AI labs in the world almost overnight.
For context, OpenAI was valued at $157 billion in its last round, according to The Wall Street Journal. Anthropic sits at $61.5 billion, according to Reuters. Thinking Machines at $40 billion puts it squarely in that tier before shipping a single commercial product.
What Most People Get Wrong About This
Most people will see this headline and think “another AI company raises too much money.” That’s the wrong read.
Murati spent years at the center of the most important AI development lab on the planet. She knows what the next two years of AI capability looks like. When someone with that knowledge raises $1 billion and prices herself at $40 billion, she’s not guessing. She’s pricing in what she already knows.
This is where the rich versus poor mindset split shows up clearly. The average person sees a $40 billion valuation and thinks “bubble.” The owner sees a founder with insider knowledge of OpenAI’s roadmap, deep relationships with the best researchers in the world, and a fresh cap table with no legacy baggage, and thinks “this might actually be cheap.”
According to PitchBook, AI startup valuations have increased an average of 340% since 2022. The floor keeps rising. Accel isn’t paying $40 billion because they love the pitch deck. They’re paying because they think the real number in three years is much higher.
There’s also a talent angle that doesn’t get enough attention. According to LinkedIn data cited by The Information, roughly 40% of ex-OpenAI employees who left in 2024 and 2025 joined companies started by other ex-OpenAI founders. Murati has a gravitational pull that money alone can’t buy. She can recruit people who won’t return calls from anyone else.
If you’re building in the AI space, content, apps, or tools, you need to understand what this round signals. The window for small operators to build on top of frontier AI before pricing gets restrictive is closing. I’d use that window now. If you’re creating video content around AI news or any fast moving story, InVideo AI lets you turn an article into short form video quickly without a production team. That matters when cycles are moving this fast.
What This Means for You
Let me be direct. If you’re not already in this trade, you won’t get into this round. Accel isn’t taking your call. That’s fine. Here’s what you can actually do with this information.
Watch what Thinking Machines builds. Murati has been vocal about building AI that’s more transparent and controllable than what exists today. If that’s the product direction, the first commercial release will tell you a lot about which existing AI tools get displaced and which get stronger.
Second, the fundraising pace in AI right now is brutal for bootstrapped builders. Every major lab is raising at higher prices. That means API costs stay high and negotiating power stays with the labs. The smart move is to lock in favorable tool access now before the next round pushes prices up again. For software tools, checking AppSumo for lifetime deals on AI-powered apps is one of the few ways small operators get ahead of enterprise pricing before it fully kicks in.
Third, pay attention to who Thinking Machines hires. The first 50 employees at a company like this set the technical direction for years. Follow those hires on LinkedIn. When top researchers from DeepMind, Google, or Anthropic start moving to Thinking Machines, that’s your signal that something real is being built.
This is not abstract. The AI companies raising at these prices are doing so because the money they’re raising will build products that change what your job looks like in 2028. The time to understand that is now, not after the product ships.
The Bottom Line
Accel doesn’t lead $1 billion rounds on hope. Mira Murati didn’t leave the best job in AI for a maybe. This round at $40 billion is a signal, not a story. The people who treat it as background noise will spend the next three years wondering how they missed it. I’d rather be the person who understood it early and positioned accordingly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Thinking Machines and who founded it?
Thinking Machines Lab is an AI research company founded by Mira Murati, who previously served as Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI. She left OpenAI in late 2024 and launched the company shortly after, building a team of researchers focused on more controllable and transparent AI systems.
Why does the $40 billion valuation matter?
It places Thinking Machines in the same tier as the top AI labs globally before releasing any commercial product. According to public reporting, only OpenAI and Anthropic currently sit at higher valuations in the private AI lab category, making this an unusually high number for a company this early in its life.
What role is Accel playing in the Thinking Machines round?
Accel, the venture capital firm known for early investments in Facebook and dozens of enterprise software companies, is reportedly in talks to lead the $1 billion funding round, according to Bloomberg. If the deal closes, it would be one of Accel’s largest single investments in the AI sector.
What does this round signal for the broader AI funding market?
It signals that top investors still believe the AI lab tier is worth funding at high prices even this late in the cycle. According to PitchBook, AI startup valuations have risen sharply since 2022, and this deal suggests no slowdown at the very top of the market.
Can individual investors get exposure to Thinking Machines?
Not directly. This is a private institutional round and individual investors won’t have access. The better play is to track what the company builds, watch who they hire, and understand how their products might shift the competitive balance among AI tools you already use or invest in.
