Key facts
- AI lab Prentis, co-founded by Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, is in discussions to raise $100 million.
- The company aims to develop AI agents that can control computers to automate office tasks.
- Prentis claims its AI models outperform rivals like OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 on specific benchmarks.
- The startup has already signed contracts valued up to $50 million with multiple clients.
- Prentis asserts its models are significantly more cost-effective per task compared to existing APIs.
Prentis, a new AI research lab co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das, along with tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, is reportedly in discussions to secure $100 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. Launched in April, Prentis focuses on training AI models to understand how office workers navigate routine tasks across documents and systems, with the ultimate goal of creating AI agents capable of controlling computers to automate these processes.
The company aims to develop tailored agents for specific customer needs, such as automating insurance claims or customs duty refunds. Prentis has already secured contracts valued up to $50 million with clients in healthcare, manufacturing, and goods and clothing sectors. Investor materials suggest an estimated $75 million annualized run rate by the third quarter, though these figures are performance-dependent and based on a fee structure tied to realized savings.
Prentis claims its Hive-32B model surpasses competitors like OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 on key computer-use benchmarks, including real-world task completion on Windows applications and on-screen control location. The startup argues its advantage lies in using a smaller, cheaper model, estimating a cost per task roughly 10 times lower than frontier APIs, making it more economical for everyday workflows.
Ritankar Das, Prentis's CEO, also founded Titan, a holding company that operates AI businesses. Titan has previously launched successful ventures like Tala Health and Forta Health, and its company Dascena was acquired in 2022. Hoffman, a LinkedIn co-founder, is also backing an AI drug-discovery startup, Manas AI, and Pincus, the founder of Zynga, runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital. Prentis has hired over 25 employees from companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba.