Accel reportedly in talks to lead $1B Thinking Machines round at $40B valuation

Thinking Machines, the AI lab founded in early 2025 by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is in discussions to raise $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, according to The Information, with TechCrunch reporting that its own source corroborates the talks. Accel, already an investor in the company, is negotiating to lead the round.

The reported terms

The Information first reported the figures on Thursday, and TechCrunch says a source of its own confirmed that Accel is in discussions to lead. If the round closes, it would still value Thinking Machines below the roughly $50 billion the company was reportedly seeking late last year, which suggests investors declined to meet the startup's earlier asking price.

Both Accel and Thinking Machines declined to comment... rather, neither responded to TechCrunch's request for comment, and as with any unfinished negotiation, the terms could shift or the deal could collapse.

Revenue behind the valuation

A source with knowledge of the company's finances told TechCrunch that Thinking Machines has an annual revenue run rate above $100 million. Set against a $40 billion valuation, that implies a multiple in the hundreds of times revenue, a figure far outside the range mature software businesses trade at and a clear signal that backers are pricing expected growth rather than present economics.

The commercial operation is still young. As TechCrunch recounts, the company introduced Inkling in July, an open-weight model that earns money through usage-based compute fees when customers adapt it to proprietary data on the company's Tinker platform. Charging for compute on an open model, rather than selling licenses or subscriptions, is currently how the lab turns research into revenue.

A short history of very large checks

Thinking Machines' only previously reported fundraise was a $2 billion round at a $12 billion valuation, which TechCrunch describes as one of the biggest seed financings ever completed. Andreessen Horowitz led that investment, with participation from Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed and Conviction Partners. According to TechCrunch, those investors were betting primarily on the reputation of Murati and the former OpenAI researchers who joined her, not on an established product line.

Since then, the senior team has thinned. TechCrunch reports several high-profile departures, including co-founders Lilian Weng and Luke Metz, both of whom returned to OpenAI. That a company can absorb exits of that caliber and still command a valuation more than three times its previous one underlines how much the market currently pays for perceived frontier capability and brand.

Why it matters

A lab that is barely eighteen months old is negotiating a price tag in the tens of billions of dollars, which would rank it among the fastest climbs from founding to frontier-scale valuation on record. The reported round reinforces two patterns shaping the AI funding environment.

First, capital keeps concentrating in a handful of labs viewed as capable of frontier research, with valuations largely detached from revenue. A $100 million run rate supporting a $40 billion price is a wager on trajectory, talent density and scarcity value, not on current financials, and it sets a reference point other startups will cite in their own negotiations.

Second, the reported terms show that even this market has limits. Coming in below the $50 billion the company reportedly sought indicates that investors are still willing to negotiate down, and that pedigree alone does not guarantee a target valuation. For Accel, leading again suggests incumbent backers will keep writing nine-figure checks to protect positions in the labs they already own, while rival firms watch the window on early access close.

All figures remain unconfirmed until the round is announced, but the direction is clear: the gap between a small circle of elite AI labs and everyone else, in both money and valuation, is still widening.