Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Marc Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Marc Pincus in talks to raise $100M
Prentis, a new AI research lab focused on computer use models, co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das, and tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
由连续创业者 Ritankar Das 以及科技界重量级人物 Reid Hoffman 和 Marc Pincus 共同创立的 AI 研究实验室 Prentis，正专注于计算机使用模型。据两位知情人士透露，该公司目前正商谈以 10 亿美元的估值筹集 1 亿美元资金。
Launched in April, Prentis is training models to learn how office workers navigate routine workflows across documents and systems, with the goal of building AI agents that can control computers to automate those tasks.
Prentis 于今年 4 月成立，致力于训练模型学习办公室职员如何处理跨文档和系统的日常工作流程，其目标是构建能够操控计算机以实现这些任务自动化的 AI 智能体。
Prentis will ostensibly develop agents tailored to these customers’ needs, such as handling insurance claims and automating customs duty refund exceptions without needing a human to hunt down paperwork.
Prentis 旨在为客户量身定制智能体，以满足特定需求，例如处理保险索赔和自动化关税退税异常流程，而无需人工去翻找纸质文件。
The startup has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million with several customers, including healthcare management service organization, a manufacturer, and goods and clothing manufactures, the two people familiar with the discussions tell TechCrunch, echoing investor materials obtained by TechCrunch that predict an estimated $75 million annualized run rate by the third quarter of this year. (Prentis’s pitch deck notes those figures reflect estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equal to 20% of savings realized, not recognized revenue, and are “performance-dependent and subject to final execution.”)
据两位知情人士向 TechCrunch 透露，该初创公司已与包括医疗管理服务机构、制造商以及商品和服装制造商在内的多家客户签署了价值高达 5000 万美元的合同。这与 TechCrunch 获得的投资者材料相呼应，该材料预测到今年第三季度，公司的年化运行率将达到约 7500 万美元。（Prentis 的融资推介材料指出，这些数字反映的是基于节省成本 20% 的合同费用所估算的年化价值，而非已确认收入，且“取决于绩效表现并以最终执行为准”。）
By its own account, Prentis says its Hive-32B model outperforms rivals, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, on two computer-use benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena, which measures end-to-end task completion on real Windows applications; and ScreenSpot-v2, which tests a model’s ability to locate the right on-screen control.
据 Prentis 自称，其 Hive-32B 模型在两项计算机使用基准测试中表现优于 OpenAI 的 GPT-5.4 和 Anthropic 的 Claude Opus 4.6 等竞争对手。这两项测试分别是：衡量在真实 Windows 应用程序上端到端任务完成情况的 WindowsAgentArena，以及测试模型定位屏幕上正确控件能力的 ScreenSpot-v2。
In its pitch deck, the company argues its edge comes from running a much smaller, cheaper model. In fact, it claims roughly 10 times lower cost per task than frontier APIs, saying it’s more economical to deploy across everyday workflows. TechCrunch hasn’t independently verified the company’s benchmark results.
在融资推介材料中，该公司认为其优势在于运行着一个规模更小、成本更低的模型。事实上，它声称每项任务的成本比前沿 API 低约 10 倍，并表示在日常工作流程中部署更具经济效益。TechCrunch 尚未独立核实该公司的基准测试结果。
The startup is betting that automating everyday office tasks will soon outpace coding as AI’s biggest use case, but it’s a crowded market. Anthropic, Open AI, and Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines are also working on developing AI agents for computer use, one of sources said. Anthropic has also been acquiring talent in the category directly — it bought the Seattle computer-use startup Vercept earlier this year, folding in its founders and shutting down its product.
这家初创公司押注自动化日常办公任务将很快超越编程，成为 AI 最大的应用场景，但这是一个竞争激烈的市场。其中一位消息人士称，Anthropic、OpenAI 以及 Mira Murati 的 Thinking Machines 也都在致力于开发用于计算机操作的 AI 智能体。Anthropic 此前还直接在该领域收购人才——今年早些时候收购了西雅图计算机使用初创公司 Vercept，将其创始人纳入麾下并关闭了其产品。
Prentis didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Prentis 未回应 TechCrunch 的置评请求。
Ritankar Das, CEO of Prantis, is also the founder of Titan, a holding company that builds and operates AI companies. Das, now 31, was UC Berkeley’s youngest University Medalist in more than a century, graduating at 18 with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology before earning a master’s in biomedical engineering at Oxford.
Prentis 的首席执行官 Ritankar Das 同时也是 Titan 的创始人，这是一家构建并运营 AI 公司的控股公司。现年 31 岁的 Das 是加州大学伯克利分校一个多世纪以来最年轻的大学奖章获得者，他在 18 岁时以生物工程和化学生物学双学位毕业，随后在牛津大学获得了生物医学工程硕士学位。
He founded Titan in 2014 after dropping out of an AI PhD program at Cambridge, where he’d been a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has described Titan as an intentional throwback to an old-fashioned holding-company model like Berkshire Hathaway, one that’s funded by its own exits rather than outside limited partners.
他在从剑桥大学的 AI 博士项目退学后于 2014 年创立了 Titan，此前他曾是盖茨剑桥学者。Das 将 Titan 描述为一种刻意回归伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司那种老式控股公司模式的尝试，即通过自身的退出项目而非外部有限合伙人来提供资金。
Other businesses launched and operated by Titan include AI-powered virtual care provider Tala Health, which raised a $100 million seed round last year, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that raised $55 million led by Insight Partners in 2024. Titan-founded disease prediction company Dascena was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.
由 Titan 推出并运营的其他业务包括 AI 驱动的虚拟护理提供商 Tala Health（去年筹集了 1 亿美元种子轮融资），以及自闭症护理初创公司 Forta Health（2024 年由 Insight Partners 领投筹集了 5500 万美元）。Titan 创立的疾病预测公司 Dascena 已于 2022 年被 CirrusDx 收购。
Prentis is a side project of sorts for its two other co-founders. Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, said last month that he was stepping down from Microsoft’s board after nearly a decade to go “founder mode” on Manas AI, an AI drug-discovery startup he’s also backing; he was an early OpenAI investor and co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman before Microsoft absorbed most of that team in 2024.
对于另外两位联合创始人来说，Prentis 算是一个副业。LinkedIn 联合创始人兼 Greylock 合伙人 Hoffman 上个月表示，在担任微软董事近十年后，他将卸任，以便以“创始人模式”投入到他支持的 AI 药物研发初创公司 Manas AI 中；他曾是 OpenAI 的早期投资者，并与 Mustafa Suleyman 共同创立了 Inflection AI，随后该团队的大部分成员于 2024 年被微软吸收。
Pincus, the Zynga founder, now runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital with Hoffman as a senior adviser, and published a memoir, “Life at the Speed of Play,” last month.
Zynga 创始人 Pincus 目前与担任高级顾问的 Hoffman 一起经营投资公司 Reinvent Capital，并于上个月出版了回忆录《Life at the Speed of Play》。
Prentis has already hired more than 25 employees, including researchers who previously worked at OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent and Alibaba, according to its website.
据其官网显示，Prentis 已经雇佣了超过 25 名员工，其中包括曾就职于 OpenAI、Google DeepMind、Meta、腾讯和阿里巴巴的研究人员。