Mira Murati’s AI Startup Valued at $12 Billion
Mira Murati, who previously served as chief technology officer at OpenAI, recently confirmed that her company Thinking Machines Lab closed a $2 billion funding round. This amount represents the largest round in the entire history of venture capital and startups. The company’s valuation reached $12 billion (approximately CZK 260 billion), an astonishing achievement for a company founded only in February 2025 in San Francisco. According to available information, the round was led by investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, with major players such as Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, and even the Albanian government participating. This success comes at a time when the AI sector is developing rapidly, and Thinking Machines Lab is entering the field with ambitions to compete with leaders such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Mira Murati, who was born in Albania, left OpenAI in early 2025 to found her own company. During her time at OpenAI, she helped create tools such as ChatGPT, which sparked a revolution in generative artificial intelligence. Her new project now focuses on creating powerful AI systems designed to address the world’s most difficult problems, such as climate change and disease eradication. The company aims to attract not only AI experts but also the brightest minds from other fields, such as science, before AI systems become too complex for broad collaboration.
A Team Full of Talent and the Rejection of Lucrative Offers
Thinking Machines Lab quickly assembled a top-tier team largely composed of former OpenAI colleagues. Key members include John Schulman, Jonathan Lachman, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew, and Alec Radford, all of whom have extensive experience developing advanced AI models. The company is structured as a public benefit corporation, giving Mira Murati a decisive voting majority on the board and granting founding shareholders votes weighted one hundred times more heavily than ordinary shares. This ensures that the company remains firmly under her leadership.
An interesting detail is that Thinking Machines Lab recently rejected enormous offers from Meta. According to reports from August 1, 2025, Meta offered key team members multi-year compensation packages worth up to $1 billion to join its new Superintelligence Lab. However, none of the members accepted the offer, underscoring the company’s commitment to independence. Mira Murati emphasized that the team remains dedicated to its vision of innovating outside large corporate structures.
Mission: Democratizing AI for Everyone
Although details of its technical direction remain largely confidential, Thinking Machines Lab has publicly declared its mission to democratize access to advanced AI tools. It wants to make them broadly understandable, customizable, and generally capable. The company plans to publish technical blog posts, research papers, and code for the public good, thereby increasing transparency and public understanding of advanced AI systems. This more open approach should benefit companies, policymakers, and others, in contrast to the more closed models of other AI labs.
With $2 billion at its disposal, the company is focused on acquiring computing power and talent to catch up with its competitors. It is entering the field late, but with a clear goal: to create AI that will help address global challenges and benefit the wider public.
Impact on Female Founders
Mira Murati’s success is particularly significant for female founders. In 2024, startups with at least one woman on the founding team raised $38 billion, but those founded exclusively by women received only 2.1% of total venture capital—a combined $3.7 billion across roughly 800 deals. Murati’s $2 billion is therefore exceptional and demonstrates what is possible with a generational founder at the helm. According to a report by Female Founders Fund and Inc., women use capital more efficiently, generating 78 cents in revenue for every dollar invested, compared with 31 cents for male-founded startups.
Investors such as Accel, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, Nvidia, and ServiceNow expect a return, but the impact on humanity is more important. Thinking Machines Lab’s entry into the AI race brings a diversity of perspectives that will shape the future. For other women in tech and beyond, this means that what seems impossible can become reality. Emma Hinchliffe, the author of an article in Fortune, summarized it as an inspiration for the entire sector.
