In today’s edition: an EU-Trump trade deal, the Lionnesses’ victory, and the improbability and impact of Mira Murati’s $2 billion.
– Mission impossible. Earlier this month, Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab confirmed long-rumored news: the AI company had closed a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation.
It was the largest seed round ever, in the history of venture capital and startups. It was hardly underreported. And yet, there’s an aspect to this news that hasn’t seemed to have been fully appreciated—just how unlikely, and meaningful, this is for female founders.
Murati is, undoubtedly, in a league of her own as a founder. The Albania-born former CTO of OpenAI, she helped create ChatGPT and start the generative AI revolution. She left OpenAI earlier this year to build her own company. She brought top talent with her; the question everyone wants to know the answer to is what, exactly, she is building.
Not that many details are known about what Thinking Machines is doing. But a source familiar with what Murati is building tells me that it’s creating powerful AI systems capable of tackling the world’s toughest problems—climate change, disease eradication, and more. The company is eager to bring along the world’s smartest people in other fields—like science—rather than only those who work in the AI industry itself, all before AI systems become too powerful for that to matter. And its more open approach is expected to benefit businesses, policymakers, and others.
But Thinking Machines is entering the game late, hence the $2 billion: it needs compute and talent to compete with the AI leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google that have a years-long head start.
In an environment where startups with at least woman on the founding team took in $38 billion in funding last year—and those founded solely by women earned 2.1% of VC dollars, for a total sum of $3.7 billion, across about 800 deals—the $2 billion number is extraordinary.
A report released by Female Founders Fund and Inc. last week showed what women are doing with the paltry share of venture funding they are getting; last year women were responsible for 24% of exits. They put capital to work more efficiently, earning 78 cents of revenue for every dollar raised, compared to 31 cents at male-founded startups.
So imagine what will be possible with $2 billion—and a generational founder at the helm. Known investors in the company include Accel, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, Nvidia, and ServiceNow. They’re surely expecting their investment to pay off (see: $12 billion valuation). But more important is how Murati and her capital will impact humanity. The true entry of Thinking Machines into the AI race helps diversify the perspectives that will shape the future of our world. And Murati’s achievement lets other women know, in frontier tech and beyond—what seems impossible, can be possible.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Deal, done. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is finalizing a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump. The deal includes a 15% tariff on most EU products—rather than the 30% tariff the Trump administration had threatened to hit the bloc with. Fortune
- Let's go, Lionesses! England's Lionesses won the 2025 Euro final, defeating Spain in penalty shootouts. The team had been written off before the match, and their win is now being called "the greatest achievement in the history of English football." BBC
- AMD x AI. AMD CEO Lisa Su last week supported the Trump administration's AI action plan. "The AI action plan is a great way of just laying out all the various pieces that will be helpful for us to run fast,” said the CEO of the second-largest chipmaker. Wall Street Journal
- Money problems. Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn has worked to give away her inheritance—and she's learned how complicated that can be. Even after ridding herself of most of her personal fortune, Engelhorn realizes that her familial and social network is still made up of other ultra-wealthy people—meaning she can lose millions without worry. Bloomberg
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Patricia Cobian will become CFO of BT Group, the U.K. telecom giant headed by Alison Kirkby—an extremely rare female CEO-CFO duo in the FTSE 100.
ON MY RADAR
Notes on bed rest The New Yorker
The Tea app was intended to help women date safely. Then it got hacked AP
Women of a certain age are finding themselves with Phoebe Philo Washington Post
PARTING WORDS
"Feeling lonely doesn’t necessarily mean that something’s wrong. It just means I have to make space for the feeling."
— Tracee Ellis Ross on her new show about the joys and realities of solo travel
