Key facts
- Mirendil, an AI startup founded by former Anthropic researchers, is in talks to raise new funding at a $5 billion valuation.
- Kleiner Perkins is in talks to lead the financing round, which could bring up to $1 billion in new capital.
- Andreessen Horowitz is also in discussions to invest in the round.
- The startup's pitch is to sell self-improving AI that large AI labs build for themselves and guard from others.
- Mirendil was founded by Behnam Neyshabur and Harsh Mehta, who left Anthropic in December 2025.
- The company raised $200 million at a $1 billion valuation in a seed round announced June 24, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, with Nvidia participating.
Mirendil, an artificial intelligence startup founded by former researchers from Anthropic, is reportedly in discussions to secure new funding at a valuation of $5 billion. The company's strategy is to offer self-improving AI capabilities, a technology that major AI labs typically develop and retain for internal use.
Kleiner Perkins is reportedly in talks to lead the current financing round, which could inject up to $1 billion into the startup. Andreessen Horowitz is also considering an investment in the round. These discussions follow Mirendil's announcement in June of a $200 million seed round at a $1 billion valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Nvidia.
Mirendil was founded by Behnam Neyshabur, who previously co-led reasoning research for Google's Gemini, and Harsh Mehta, who built Anthropic's internal AI research platform. They left Anthropic in December 2025. The startup aims to provide a platform that can automate AI research tasks such as designing experiments, optimizing settings, and evaluating models, enabling organizations without extensive machine-learning teams to develop advanced AI applications.