The problem
Companies want models they can customize on their own data instead of one closed general chatbot
What they do
Frontier AI lab shipping open-weight models (Inkling) and the Tinker fine-tuning platform
Traction Revenue run rate over $100M (TechCrunch source, Sep 2026)
Hiring trend
- Open roles
- 52
- Ops roles
- 4
- Headcount
- ~200
Headcount ~30 (Feb 2025) to ~200 (mid-2026); 55 open roles
Hiring in
- San Francisco
- New York
- Washington, DC
Funding
- Last round
- $2B
- Stage
- Seed (record)
- Date
- Jul 2025
Led by a16z
- Hiring+252 open roles on the live job board (30+ roles = +2)
- Funding recency+1Seed (record) · $2B, Jul 2025 (15 months ago): 12–24 months = +0.5, $100M+ round +0.5
- Traction+1.5Strong growth: Revenue run rate over $100M (TechCrunch source, Sep 2026)
- Red flags−11 significant flag in the last 24 months, −1 eachCo-founder exodus: 4 of 6 co-founders gone (Tulloch to Meta; Zoph, Metz to OpenAI; Weng) Startup Fortune, Jul 2026 ↗ · Business Insider, May 2026 ↗
- Total3.52 + 1 + 1.5 − 1 = 3.5 → Tempo (3.5–4.24)
Distance (10K) is a separate read on how long the lead can last. It doesn't change the score.
Distance
10K · edge: cheaper at size
$100M+ run rate, but far behind the top labs and 4 of 6 co-founders have left.
Sources: The Next Web: Thinking Machines in talks to raise $6bn (Sep 2026) ↗
Watch-outs
Co-founder exodus: 4 of 6 co-founders gone (Tulloch to Meta; Zoph, Metz to OpenAI; Weng)
Sources: Startup Fortune, Jul 2026 ↗ · Business Insider, May 2026 ↗
Last checked Oct 25, 2026