Prentis: Revolutionizing AI with $100M Funding Boost

Prentis: A New AI Research Lab Making Waves in the Industry

A groundbreaking AI research lab called Prentis, co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das alongside tech giants Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is currently in discussions to secure a staggering $100 million in funding at a valuation of $1 billion. This information comes from sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations.

Established in April, Prentis is laser-focused on training models to understand how office workers navigate their daily workflows across various documents and systems. The ultimate goal is to develop AI agents capable of automating these tasks by controlling computers effectively.

Prentis aims to tailor its agents to the specific needs of its clients, such as streamlining insurance claims processing and automating customs duty refund exceptions without requiring human intervention in paperwork retrieval.

The startup has already inked deals worth up to $50 million with multiple clients, including a healthcare management service organization, a manufacturer, and several goods and clothing manufacturers. Insider sources revealed to TechCrunch that Prentis is on track to achieve an estimated annualized run rate of $75 million by the third quarter of this year. Notably, these figures are performance-dependent and subject to final execution, as outlined in the company’s pitch deck.

According to Prentis, its Hive-32B model surpasses competitors like OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 in two key computer-use benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena and ScreenSpot-v2. These benchmarks evaluate a model’s ability to complete tasks on Windows applications and locate on-screen controls accurately, respectively.

Prentis asserts that its competitive edge stems from utilizing a significantly smaller and more cost-effective model, resulting in approximately 10 times lower costs per task compared to leading APIs. While the company’s benchmark results have not been independently verified by TechCrunch, the potential cost savings and efficiency gains are certainly impressive.

Despite facing stiff competition in the market, with players like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines Lab also developing AI agents for computer use, Prentis remains confident in its approach. The company believes that the future of AI lies in automating everyday office tasks, positioning itself at the forefront of this emerging trend.

Unfortunately, Prentis declined to provide a comment to TechCrunch regarding these developments.

Ritankar Das, the CEO of Prentis, boasts an impressive background as the founder of Titan, a holding company specializing in building and operating AI-focused enterprises. A prodigious talent, Das became UC Berkeley’s youngest University Medalist in over a century, graduating at the age of 18 with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology before earning a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Oxford.

Das launched Titan in 2014 after leaving an AI PhD program at Cambridge, where he had been a Gates Cambridge Scholar. He describes Titan as a throwback to traditional holding-company models like Berkshire Hathaway, funding its operations through internal exits rather than external limited partners.

Among Titan’s successful ventures are Tala Health, a virtual care provider that raised $100 million in seed funding last year, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that secured a $55 million investment led by Insight Partners in 2024. Additionally, Dascena, a disease prediction company founded by Titan, was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.

For both Hoffman and Pincus, Prentis represents a side project alongside their other commitments. Hoffman, renowned as the co-founder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock, recently announced his departure from Microsoft’s board to focus on founding Manas AI, an AI drug-discovery startup. He has a history of successful investments in the AI sector, including an early stake in OpenAI and co-founding Inflection AI before its integration into Microsoft in 2024.

Pincus, known for his role as the founder of Zynga, now leads Reinvent Capital, an investment firm where Hoffman serves as a senior adviser. Pincus also published a memoir titled “Life at the Speed of Play” last month, showcasing his insights and experiences in the tech industry.

With a growing team of over 25 employees, including researchers with backgrounds at prominent tech companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba, Prentis is well-positioned to make a significant impact in the AI research landscape.

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