According to a report by TechCrunch, Prentis, a new artificial intelligence research lab focused on computer use models and co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das alongside tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. The information is based on accounts from two people familiar with the discussions, who shared these details with TechCrunch.
Launched this past April, Prentis is training AI models to learn how office workers navigate routine workflows across various documents and systems. The explicit goal of the new venture is to develop AI agents that can directly control computers to automate and perform these tasks independently.
Talks to Raise $100 Million and Developing AI Agents
According to the TechCrunch report, Prentis aims to develop agents tailored to the specific needs of its customers. Among the intended use cases for these agents are handling insurance claims and automatically managing customs duty refund exceptions, all without requiring a human operator to manually locate and search through papers and documents.
The company is actively working to advance these solutions. Two sources familiar with the details and close to the discussions told TechCrunch that the startup has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million in total value with several customers. This initial customer list includes a healthcare management service organization, a manufacturer, as well as goods and clothing manufacturers.
Existing Contracts and Annual Run Rate Predictions Based on Investor Materials
These contract figures align closely with investor materials prepared for prospective backers, which were obtained by TechCrunch. According to these materials, the company projects an estimated annualized run rate of approximately $75 million by the third quarter of this year.
However, Prentis’ pitch deck explicitly clarifies that these figures reflect an estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equal to 20% of the actual savings realized by customers through the system, rather than recognized revenue. The company emphasizes in its documents that these figures are entirely performance-dependent and subject to the final execution of the agreements.
Hive-32B Model Performance vs. Competitors in the Market
As part of presenting its own proprietary data, Prentis claims that its developed model, designated Hive-32B, delivers performance that surpasses its prominent competitors in the market. According to the company's figures, the model outperforms OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6. This comparison was made based on two specialized computer-use benchmarks:
The first test is WindowsAgentArena, which measures end-to-end task completion on actual Windows applications and operating systems. The second test is ScreenSpot-v2, which evaluates the AI model's ability to locate the correct on-screen control button precisely.
In its pitch deck, Prentis argues that its competitive advantage stems from running a much smaller and cheaper model compared to its rivals. The company claims its model achieves a cost per task that is roughly 10 times lower than the frontier APIs of leading models on the market, making it, in its view, far more economical and logical to deploy widely across everyday office workflows. However, TechCrunch's report explicitly noted that the outlet has not independently verified the benchmark results presented by the company.
Increasing Competition in the Office Automation Market
The startup Prentis is betting on the prediction that the automation of everyday office tasks will soon outpace coding to become the single largest use case for artificial intelligence technology. Despite the massive potential, this market is highly crowded and competitive.
One of the sources told TechCrunch that market leaders Anthropic and OpenAI, alongside Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab, are also actively working to develop AI agents designed for computer use. Anthropic has even taken direct steps to acquire talent in this category: earlier this year, it acquired Vercept, a Seattle-based computer-use startup, absorbing its founders into its ranks and shutting down its product operations entirely. Notably, Prentis chose not to respond to TechCrunch's requests for comment.
The Lab's Founders: Ritankar Das, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Pincus
Prentis CEO Ritankar Das is also the founder of Titan, a holding company that builds and operates AI companies. Das, currently 31, was previously recognized as UC Berkeley's youngest University Medalist in more than a century, graduating at just 18 years old with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology before earning a master's degree in biomedical engineering at Oxford University.
Das founded Titan in 2014 after deciding to drop out of an AI PhD program at Cambridge University, which he attended as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has described Titan as an intentional throwback to an old-fashioned holding company model, similar to Berkshire Hathaway, funded by its own independent exits rather than outside limited partners.
For Prentis' two other co-founders, the venture represents something of a side project. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock, announced last month that he is stepping down from the board of tech giant Microsoft after nearly a decade in order to enter "founder mode" at Manas AI—an AI-powered drug discovery startup he also backs. Hoffman was an early investor in OpenAI and co-founded Inflection AI alongside Mustafa Suleyman, prior to Microsoft absorbing most of that company's team in 2024.
The other co-founder, Mark Pincus, founder of gaming company Zynga, currently runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital, with Hoffman serving as a senior adviser. Additionally, Pincus published a memoir last month titled "Life at the Speed of Play."
Prentis has already hired more than 25 employees, including researchers who previously worked at major tech firms such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba, according to the information published on the startup's official website.
The Titan Holding Company Model and Das's Entrepreneurial History
Ritankar Das's entrepreneurial history through Titan includes launching and operating other businesses across diverse sectors:
- Tala Health, an AI-powered virtual care provider, which raised a $100 million seed round last year.
- Forta Health, an autism care startup, which raised $55 million in 2024 in a round led by Insight Partners.
- Dascena, a disease prediction company also founded by Titan, which was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.