Prentis — Reid Hoffman's New AI Lab Is Raising $100 Million
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus are launching Prentis, an AI lab building computer-use agents. The startup is raising $100M at a $1B valuation.
Prentis — A New AI Lab Valued at $1 Billion
Prentis, a new AI research lab focused on computer-use models co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das and tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Launched in April 2026, Prentis is training models to learn how office workers navigate routine workflows across documents and systems, with the goal of building AI agents that can control computers to automate those tasks.
What Does Prentis Actually Do?
Prentis develops agents tailored to handle tasks like processing insurance claims and automating customs duty refund exceptions — work that currently requires humans to hunt down paperwork. The startup has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million with several enterprise customers.
The Founders
Ritankar Das (CEO), now 31, was UC Berkeley's youngest University Medalist in more than a century, graduating at 18 with a double major. He founded Titan in 2014, a holding company described as a "throwback to Berkshire Hathaway."
Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, recently stepped down from Microsoft's board after nearly a decade. He was an early OpenAI investor and co-founded Inflection AI.
Mark Pincus, Zynga founder, now runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital.
Hive-32B Model
Prentis claims its Hive-32B model outperforms rivals including OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 on two computer-use benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena and ScreenSpot-v2. The company argues its edge comes from running a much smaller, cheaper model — roughly 10x lower cost per task than frontier APIs.
Market Opportunity
The startup projects $75 million annualized run rate by Q3 2026. It's betting that automating everyday office tasks will soon outpace coding as AI's biggest use case.
Competitive Landscape
The market is crowded. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab are also developing AI agents for computer use. Anthropic acquired Vercept, a Seattle computer-use startup, earlier this year.
Conclusion
Prentis represents a growing trend in AI: moving from chat models to agents that can actually control computer systems like humans do.