AI startup Thinking Machines Lab has raised fresh capital of approximately $2bn in a funding round that valued the company at $12bn.

The funding round was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other investors such as Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street also participated.

Thinking Machines Lab was founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati in February. She confirmed the fundraising in a post on social media platform X (previously Twitter).

“We’re building multimodal AI that works with how you naturally interact with the world – through conversation, through sight, through the messy way we collaborate,” she said in the post.

“We’re excited that in the next couple months we’ll be able to share our first product, which will include a significant open source component and be useful for researchers and startups developing custom models. Soon, we’ll also share our best science to help the research community better understand frontier AI systems.”

The startup seeks to develop AI systems that are safer, more reliable, and applicable to a wider range of uses than competitors. At its inception, nearly two-thirds of the team comprised former OpenAI employees.

The fundraising comes as investor interest in new AI startups remains robust, despite some industry concerns about tech spending.

This enthusiasm contributed to a 76% increase in US startup funding, reaching $162.8bn in the first half of 2025. AI accounted for nearly 64.1% of the total deal value, Reuters reported, citing data from Pitchbook.

A few weeks ago, Elon Musk-backed AI company xAI raised $5bn in debt and secured an additional $5bn through an equity investment.

It will use the proceeds to support its development of advanced AI solutions.