Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M

Prentis is a new AI research lab co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das along with tech investors Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus that is seeking to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. The lab focuses on building AI models that can learn how office workers navigate routine tasks and workflows so that AI agents can automate those tasks across documents and systems, such as handling insurance claims and automating refund exceptions. Prentis has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million with several customers including healthcare, manufacturing, and goods and clothing companies, and claims its Hive-32B model outperforms competitors like OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 on computer-use benchmarks while operating at roughly 10 times lower cost. The company operates in a crowded market where Anthropic, OpenAI, and other firms are also developing AI agents for computer use, with Anthropic having recently acquired a competitor startup called Vercept.