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Thinking Machines Seeks $1 Billion at Roughly $40 Billion Valuation

Investor talks at a lower price would provide cash to cover the lab's heavy compute needs, model training and hiring.

Overview

  • Reports on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026 say Thinking Machines is in talks to raise about $1 billion at a roughly $40 billion valuation with Accel reportedly considering leading and Nvidia a possible participant.
  • Sources report the company generates annualized revenue in the low-to-mid hundreds of millions, a figure that makes a $40 billion price imply a very high revenue multiple.
  • Thinking Machines markets a fine-tuning API called Tinker and released the 975-billion-parameter multimodal model Inkling on July 15, 2026, which together drive usage-based revenue.
  • The lab has a confirmed multiyear Nvidia deal to supply at least one gigawatt of chips for training and inference, a commitment that both enables large-scale work and creates ongoing capital and operating needs.
  • Thinking Machines closed a $2 billion seed in July 2025 that valued it at about $12 billion, later explored $50–60 billion talks that collapsed, and now operates with roughly 100–200 employees amid several high-profile departures which heighten retention and hiring pressures.