Thinking Machines Lab

AI research and products company founded by Mira Murati, shipping Tinker, a cloud API for fine-tuning and training open models.

Total funding$2B

Valuation$12B

Employees120

Founded2025

HeadquartersSan Francisco, USA

StatusPrivate

Product

Selected offerings — the AI products recorded here, not the vendor's full catalogue.

• Tinker API service Sold on its own

  Training API for LoRA fine-tuning and sampling of open-weight models, including Thinking Machines' own Inkling family, with the training infrastructure run by Thinking Machines.

Closest alternatives 5

AAlphabet (Google)Public · $4.2TSacra's competitive analysis lists Google Vertex AI as an enterprise alternative to Tinker's hosted training/serving API; both products carry serve-a-model.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleSourced competitorServe a model in productionCompareMMicrosoftPublic · $3.7TSacra's analyst report on Thinking Machines names Microsoft Azure AI among the model-agnostic platforms and states they 'compete directly with Thinking Machines' customization layer'.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleSourced competitorServe a model in productionCompareHFHugging FacePrivate · $4.5BSacra's analyst report names Hugging Face's fine-tuning ecosystem in the same competitive paragraph whose closing sentence states these players 'compete directly with Thinking Machines' customization layer'.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSmaller scaleSourced competitorTrain or fine-tune a modelCompareAAmazonPublic · $2.8TSacra's analyst report on Thinking Machines states AWS Bedrock, Microsoft Azure AI and Google Vertex AI 'compete directly with Thinking Machines' customization layer' — an explicit direct-competition claim.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleSourced competitorServe a model in productionCompareNNVIDIAPublic · $5.1TSame competitive paragraph in Sacra's analyst report names NVIDIA's AI foundry services, whose closing sentence states these players 'compete directly with Thinking Machines' customization layer'.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleSourced competitorTrain or fine-tune a modelCompare

Similar products 52

How this list is ranked ↗

LALiquid AIPrivateTinker and LEAP do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Liquid AI's scale not recorded; ships application and platform rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareBBaiduPublic · $31.6BTinker and PaddlePaddle do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareAAlibabaPublic · $273.4BTinker and Alibaba Cloud Model Studio do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareUUnslothPrivateTinker and Unsloth do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Unsloth's scale not recorded; ships developer tool rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareTTencentPublic · $510.1BTinker and Tencent Cloud TI Platform do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareEEleutherAINonprofitTinker and GPT-NeoX do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; EleutherAI is a nonprofit, with no independent scale; ships developer tool rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareBBasetenPrivate · $13BTinker and Baseten do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; same layer and the same scale band (late-stage private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSame scale bandCompareKKuaishouPublic · $18.6BTinker and Vanchin do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (public); ships application, developer tool and 2 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareFAFireworks AIPrivate · $17.5BTinker and Fireworks Training do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; same layer and the same scale band (late-stage private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSame scale bandCompareHHumainPrivateTinker and HUMAIN COMPUTE do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Humain's scale not recorded.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareCCrusoePrivate · $10BTinker and Serverless Fine-Tuning do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; same layer and the same scale band (late-stage private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSame scale bandCompareCCCactus ComputePrivateTinker and Cactus Platform do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; Cactus Compute's scale not recorded; ships infrastructure service and platform rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareNCNAVER CloudPrivateTinker and AiTEMS do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; NAVER Cloud's scale not recorded.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareALAI21 LabsPrivate · $1.4BTinker and AI21 Post-Training do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSmaller scaleCompareTATogether AIPrivate · $8.3BTinker and Together Fine-Tuning do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareSSenseTimePublic · $7.7BTinker and SenseCore do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (public); ships application, hardware and 4 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareHHuaweiPrivateTinker and MindSpore do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (private); ships developer tool and hardware rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareDDecartPrivate · $4BTinker and Decart Optimization Stack do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSmaller scaleCompareMAMistral AIPrivate · $13.8BTinker and Mistral Forge do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; same layer and the same scale band (late-stage private).1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSame scale bandCompareKEKakao EnterprisePrivateTinker and Kubeflow do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Kakao Enterprise's scale not recorded; ships developer tool and platform rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareHCHuawei CloudPrivateTinker and Huawei HiLens do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Huawei Cloud's scale not recorded.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareNGNebius GroupPublic · $61.6BTinker and Nebius AI Cloud do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships developer tool, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompare44ParadigmPublic · $2BTinker and 4Paradigm Sage AIOS do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (public); ships application, hardware and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareBFBlack Forest LabsPrivate · $3.3BTinker and Open Weights Licensing do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private); ships application, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareRRunPodPrivateTinker and Pods do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; RunPod's scale not recorded; ships developer tool, infrastructure service and 2 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareLLambdaPrivate · $1.5B raisedTinker and Lambda Cloud do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; ships infrastructure service and model API rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSame scale bandCompareOOraclePublic · $454.4BTinker and OCI Data Science do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareCCoreWeavePublic · $48.5BTinker and CoreWeave AI Cloud do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships AI agent, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareIIntelPublic · $463.7BTinker and Intel Geti do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships application, developer tool and 3 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareTTuringPrivate · $2.2BTinker and RL environments do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private); ships agent platform and data service rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareCSCerebras SystemsPublic · $44.4BTinker and Cerebras Training Cloud do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships hardware, model API and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareMModalPrivate · $466M raisedTinker and Modal Notebooks do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (private); ships developer tool and infrastructure service rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareLLabelboxPrivate · $189M raisedTinker and Recursion do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (private); ships agent platform, application and 3 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareAAMDPublic · $785.1BTinker and AMD Developer Cloud do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships hardware, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareW&Weights & BiasesAcquiredTinker and W&B Models do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; Weights & Biases is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareCMComet MLPrivate · $70M raisedTinker and Comet Artifacts do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; similar scale (private); ships application, developer tool and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareDDatabricksPrivate · $190BTinker and Databricks Model Training do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (private); ships agent platform, application and 5 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareDTDell TechnologiesPublic · $360.7BTinker and Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships data service, developer tool and 2 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareYYandexPublicTinker and Yandex DataSphere do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; Yandex's scale not recorded.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareTTolokaPrivateTinker and Toloka Train do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; Toloka's scale not recorded; ships AI agent, data service and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareIIBMPublic · $216.6BTinker and IBM watsonx.ai do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to serve a model in production and train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareSASnorkel AIPrivate · $1.3BTinker and Snorkel Flow do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private); ships agent platform, data service and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareNNeo4jPrivate · $2BTinker and Neo4j Graph Data Science do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (private); ships agent platform, application and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareAAdobePublic · $115.9BTinker and Adobe Firefly Services both serve buyers who need to serve a model in production; larger scale (public).2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleCompareIMInsilico MedicinePublic · $4.3BTinker and MMAI Gym do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; smaller scale (public); ships application, hardware and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareSSiemensPublic · $244.7BTinker and Rapidminer AI Studio do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships AI agent, application and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareAAppenPublicTinker and AI Data Platform do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; Appen's scale not recorded; ships data service and platform rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareAMApplied MaterialsPublic · $380.7BTinker and SmartFactory AI Predictive Metrology do comparable work on model training; both also serve buyers who need to train or fine-tune a model; larger scale (public); ships application, hardware and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerLarger scaleCompareUUiPathPublic · $7.2BTinker and UiPath AI Center do comparable work on model training; similar scale (public); ships agent platform, application and 2 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareSStepFunPrivate · $10BTinker and Step Plan both serve buyers who need to serve a model in production; same layer and the same scale band (late-stage private).1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSame scale bandCompareWLWorld LabsPrivate · $5.3BTinker and World Labs API both serve buyers who need to serve a model in production; smaller scale (private); ships application, developer tool and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerSmaller scaleCompareCCoherePrivate · $7BTinker and Model Vault both serve buyers who need to serve a model in production; similar scale (private).1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompare

Closest alternatives are pairs a vendor page itself compares. Similar products are matched from what each product does; nothing in that group is asserted as a rivalry.

Sources

Total funding

News reporting · 15 Jul 2025

Mira Murati's AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12 billion in early-stage funding, Reuters, July 15, 2025. Read via stockanalysis.com's citation for this figure on 2026-08-27.

Valuation

News reporting · 15 Jul 2025

Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round, TechCrunch, 2025-07-15. post-money valuation of the round dated 2025-07-15. Read via stockanalysis.com's citation for this figure on 2026-08-27.

Employees

News reporting · Apr 2026

Forbes company profile for Thinking Machines Lab, "Employees" stated as of April 2026. Read 2026-08-27.

Founded

Wikipedia · 11 Sep 2026

"The company was founded in February 2025."

Description

Official documentation · 6 Sep 2026

"A cloud training API that gives you full control over your data, algorithms, and models. Write training loops locally — Tinker handles the GPUs", under a Thinking Machines Lab footer. The lab ships something now, which the founder-only sentence hid.

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