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

On 3 Sep 2026 TechCrunch reported that Thinking Machines Lab (founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati) is in talks to raise about $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, with existing backer Accel discussing leading the round (citing The Information and TC’s own source). That would sit below the ~$50B valuation the company reportedly sought late last year. A source told TechCrunch annual revenue run rate is over $100 million — an extreme multiple at $40B. Prior seed was a $2B round at $12B led by a16z with Nvidia, GV, Lightspeed and Conviction. In July the company launched open-weight Inkling with usage-based compute fees on its Tinker adaptation platform. Accel and Thinking Machines did not immediately comment.