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Prentis<\/a>, a brand 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 lift $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, in line with two people accustomed to the discussions.<\/p>\n Launched in April, Prentis is training models to find out how office staff navigate routine workflows across documents and systems, with the goal of constructing AI agents that may control computers to automate those tasks.<\/p>\n Prentis will ostensibly develop agents tailored to those customers\u2019 needs, resembling handling insurance claims and automating customs duty refund exceptions with no need a human to seek out paperwork.<\/p>\n The startup has already signed contracts price as much as $50 million with several customers, including healthcare management service organization, a manufacturer, and goods and clothing manufactures, the 2 people accustomed to 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 12 months. (Prentis\u2019s pitch deck notes those figures reflect estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equal to twenty% of savings realized, not recognized revenue, and are \u201cperformance-dependent and subject to final execution.\u201d)<\/p>\n By its own account, Prentis says its Hive-32B model outperforms rivals, including OpenAI\u2019s GPT-5.4 and Anthropic\u2019s 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\u2019s ability to locate the correct on-screen control.<\/p>\n In its pitch deck, the corporate argues its edge comes from running a much smaller, cheaper model. In reality, it claims roughly 10 times lower cost per task than frontier APIs, saying it\u2019s more economical to deploy across on a regular basis workflows. TechCrunch hasn\u2019t independently verified the corporate\u2019s benchmark results.<\/p>\n The startup is betting that automating on a regular basis office tasks will soon outpace coding as AI\u2019s biggest use case, but it surely\u2019s a crowded market. Anthropic, Open AI, and Mira Murati\u2019s Considering Machines are also working on developing AI agents for computer use, certainly one of sources said. Anthropic has also been acquiring talent within the category directly \u2014 it bought the Seattle computer-use startup Vercept earlier this 12 months, folding in its founders and shutting down its product.<\/p>\n Prentis didn\u2019t reply to TechCrunch\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Ritankar Das, CEO of Prantis, can also be the founding father of Titan, a holding company that builds and operates AI firms. Das, now 31, was UC Berkeley\u2019s youngest University Medalist in greater than a century<\/a>, graduating at 18 with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology before earning a master\u2019s in biomedical engineering at Oxford. <\/p>\n He founded Titan in 2014 after dropping out of an AI PhD program at Cambridge, where he\u2019d been a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has described Titan as an intentional throwback to an old-fashioned holding-company model like Berkshire Hathaway, one which\u2019s funded by its own exits moderately than outside limited partners.<\/p>\n Other businesses launched and operated by Titan include AI-powered virtual care provider Tala Health, which raised a $100 million seed<\/a> round last 12 months, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that raised $55 million<\/a> led by Insight Partners in 2024. Titan-founded disease prediction company Dascena was acquired<\/a> by CirrusDx in 2022.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s board after nearly a decade to go \u201cfounder mode\u201d on Manas AI, an AI drug-discovery startup he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Pincus, the Zynga founder, now runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital with Hoffman as a senior adviser, and published a memoir, \u201cLife on the Speed of Play,\u201d last month.<\/p>\n Prentis has already hired greater than 25 employees, including researchers who previously worked at OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent and Alibaba, in line with its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prentis, a brand 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 lift $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, in line with two people accustomed to the discussions. Launched in April, Prentis is training models to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3141,47015,9501,7464,5259,54224,54223,3484,9500,2530],"class_list":["post-371536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-100m","tag-cofounded","tag-hoffman","tag-lab","tag-marc","tag-pincus","tag-prentis","tag-raise","tag-reid","tag-talks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t