According to a detailed report published by the technology news website TechCrunch, the new artificial intelligence research lab Prentis, which focuses on developing advanced computer use models, is currently in preliminary talks to raise $100 million at an estimated market valuation of $1 billion. The research lab was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das alongside two of the most well-known and influential names in the global tech industry—Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus. The information was disclosed by two people directly involved in the details of the discussions and negotiations.
Developing AI Agents for Office Tasks and Routine Workflows
Prentis, which officially launched only this past April, focuses on training artificial intelligence models designed to learn how office workers navigate and perform routine workflows across various documents and computer systems. The ultimate stated goal of the lab is to build artificial intelligence agents (AI agents) capable of directly controlling computers to achieve full automation of these daily tasks.
According to the plans, Prentis will develop custom AI agents tailored to the specific needs of each of its customers. These models are designed to handle complex office tasks, such as processing insurance claims and automatically managing customs duty refund exceptions. The objective is to perform these tasks without the need for human intervention and without requiring a human employee to manually search for and locate documents and paperwork.
Financial Data and Initial Commercial Agreements with Existing Customers
Despite being a very young company operating for only a short period, the startup has already managed to sign commercial contracts worth up to $50 million with several customers across various industries. These customers include a healthcare management service organization, an industrial manufacturing company, as well as manufacturers of goods and clothing. This information was revealed by two sources familiar with the negotiations and matches the data presented in Prentis's investor pitch deck, which was obtained by TechCrunch.
The company's investor pitch deck projects an estimated annualized run rate of approximately $75 million by the third quarter of this year. However, Prentis's deck explicitly clarifies and emphasizes that these figures reflect an estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equal to 20% of the actual savings realized for customers through the use of the system. These figures do not represent officially recognized revenue, but rather constitute estimates that are directly performance-dependent and subject to the final execution and implementation of the agreements between the parties.
Performance of the Hive-32B Model Against Leading OpenAI and Anthropic Models
As part of demonstrating its technological capabilities, Prentis claims that its flagship model, designated Hive-32B, outperforms leading competitor models in the market, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 model and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model. The company showcases this superiority across two key benchmarks commonly used in the computer use domain: the first is WindowsAgentArena, which measures the model's end-to-end task completion capabilities on real Windows applications; and the second is ScreenSpot-v2, which evaluates the model's ability to precisely locate the appropriate controls, components, and elements displayed on the screen.
In its investor materials, the company argues that its significant competitive advantage stems from its decision to run a model that is much smaller and cheaper compared to its competitors. Indeed, Prentis claims roughly a 10 times lower cost per task compared to the market's leading frontier APIs, making its implementation far more viable and economical for organizations' daily workflows. However, TechCrunch notes that they have not independently verified these reported benchmark results.
A Crowded Market and Intense Competition Over Office Automation
The startup Prentis is betting that the automation of everyday office tasks will soon outpace code generation to become the largest and most central use case for artificial intelligence technology. However, this is a crowded and highly competitive market. According to one of the sources involved in the details, leading tech giants such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mira Murati’s company, Thinking Machines, are also currently working on developing dedicated AI agents for computer use.
Anthropic has even taken active steps to acquire talent in this specific area directly, having acquired the Seattle-based computer-use startup Vercept earlier this year. As part of the acquisition, Anthropic integrated the founders into its own company and completely shut down the acquired startup's original product. Prentis itself chose not to respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment on this matter.
Ritankar Das and Holding Company Titan
Prentis CEO Ritankar Das is also the founder of Titan, a holding company that builds and operates various artificial intelligence companies. Das, now 31, was 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 continuing his studies for a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at the prestigious University of Oxford.
Das founded Titan in 2014 after dropping out of an artificial intelligence PhD program at the University of Cambridge, where he studied as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has described Titan as an intentional and planned throwback to the old-fashioned holding company model like Berkshire Hathaway—a company funded entirely by its own exits rather than external limited partners (LPs).
Other businesses launched and operated by Titan include Tala Health, an AI-powered virtual care provider that raised a $100 million seed round last year, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that raised $55 million led by Insight Partners in 2024. The Titan-founded disease prediction company Dascena was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.
Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus: A Side Project for Tech Veterans
For the company's two other co-founders, Prentis represents a side project of sorts alongside their other activities. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and partner at Greylock, announced last month that he was stepping down from the board of tech giant Microsoft after nearly a decade to go into "founder mode" at Manas AI, an AI-powered drug-discovery startup he is backing. Hoffman was an early investor in OpenAI and co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman before Microsoft absorbed most of that company's team in 2024.
Marc Pincus, founder of the gaming company Zynga, currently runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital, where Hoffman serves as a senior adviser. Pincus also published his memoir, "Life at the Speed of Play," last month. Prentis has already hired more than 25 employees, including researchers who previously worked at leading industry giants such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba, as noted on the company's official website.