Mira Murati's new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, is aiming to raise a $1 billion funding round at a roughly $9 billion valuation, people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
The round is still in progress, and details could change. A spokesperson for Murati declined to comment.
A $9 billion valuation is unusually high for a startup less than a year old, but investors have been eager to back AI startups, especially those founded by former OpenAI employees.
Murati previously spent 6 ½ years at OpenAI, where she served as the chief technology officer, working on the development of ChatGPT and other AI research initiatives. She was briefly appointed interim CEO in November 2023 after OpenAI's board abruptly fired Sam Altman, a move that sparked turmoil within the company. After Altman's reinstatement as CEO, Murati resumed her role as CTO.
What exactly Murati would do after leaving OpenAI last year has been a favorite Silicon Valley parlor game in recent months, with few details until the company emerged from stealth last week.
In a blog post, Murati positioned the startup as an artificial intelligence research and product lab focused on making AI more accessible.
"To bridge the gaps, we're building Thinking Machines Lab to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable and generally capable," the post said.
Murati has recruited a long list of engineers and AI researchers from her former employer OpenAI, as well as Meta and Anthropic. Several of Murati's former coworkers, including John Schulman, who co-led the creation of ChatGPT; Jonathan Lachman, formerly the head of special projects at OpenAI; Barret Zoph, a cocreator of ChatGPT; and Alexander Kirillov, who worked closely with Murati on ChatGPT's voice mode, are also working at Thinking Machines Lab.
Murati is one of a handful of former OpenAI executives who have gone on to launch their own companies. Ilya Sutskever, the former OpenAI chief scientist and cofounder, left the company in May 2024 and started Safe Superintelligence soon after leaving. Dario and Daniela Amodei also worked at OpenAI and founded Anthropic in 2021.
