Nvidia in Talks to Invest Around $2.5 Billion in Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab, led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is negotiating a $5B–$6B raise at a pre-money valuation of at least $40B. Nvidia is expected to put in about $2.5B (roughly half); Accel is discussing leading the round, though terms are not final. Andreessen Horowitz holds a board seat and briefed prospective investors. TML generates at least a few hundred million dollars in annualized revenue selling tools for companies to customize AI models with their own data; it launched open-weight Inkling in July and also builds voice AI. Murati holds a board vote equal to all other directors combined, plus one, giving her control over major decisions. A companion Sep 4 briefing restates the same core terms with no material new facts. Prior raise: $2B in July 2025 at a $10B pre-investment valuation, led by a16z, with Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed, Jane Street and Factorial Funds. Co-founder Lilian Weng recently rejoined OpenAI; remaining co-founders are Murati and John Schulman.
Why it matters
Dense Dealroom-grade update across company, people, investors and governance: named round size and valuation band, likely lead and strategic LP (Accel, Nvidia), prior cap table, special voting control, revenue band, product positioning vs closed-model labs, and co-founder churn back to OpenAI.
Executive takeaways
- Round still open: $5B–$6B at ≥$40B pre-money, with Nvidia expected ~$2.5B and Accel discussing the lead — treat as in-discussion, not closed.
- Governance is founder-controlled: Murati’s super-vote (all other directors combined +1) covers acquisitions, executive dismissals and compensation.
- Nvidia’s cheque extends its open-weight / ecosystem strategy (also Reflection, Poolside; March ‘long-term, gigawatt-scale’ TML partnership) as a counterweight to Anthropic and OpenAI.
- Business model is customization tooling and open-weight models (Inkling), competing with other open-weight and inference/cloud providers rather than frontier closed models directly; ARR is ‘at least a few hundred million.’
- Cap-table continuity: July 2025 $2B / $10B pre led by a16z with Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed, Jane Street, Factorial; people watch: Weng back at OpenAI.
What The Information may be missing
Exact pre/post-money, Accel commitment size, full current investor list and ownership %, precise ARR and growth rate, customer concentration, Inkling usage metrics, and whether Nvidia’s $2.5B is cash, cloud/GPU credits, or a mix. No closing timeline or SoftBank/other strategic interest beyond named parties.
