Prentis, a nascent AI research laboratory dedicated to advancing computer use models, is reportedly in discussions to secure $100 million in funding, valuing the company at $1 billion. This venture is co-founded by prolific entrepreneur Ritankar Das, alongside technology industry stalwarts Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, according to two sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations.
Launched in April, Prentis is focused on developing sophisticated models designed to understand and replicate how office professionals execute routine tasks across various digital documents and systems. The ultimate objective is to create autonomous AI agents capable of directly controlling computers to automate these common workflows.
The startup intends to deploy these agents, customizing them to meet specific client demands. Examples of their potential applications include streamlining insurance claims processing and automating exceptions for customs duty refunds, thereby eliminating the need for human intervention in retrieving paperwork.
Prentis has already garnered significant commercial interest, having secured contracts valued at up to $50 million with a diverse clientele, including a healthcare management service organization, a manufacturing firm, and multiple goods and clothing manufacturers. These details, shared by the same two sources with TechCrunch, align with investor materials obtained by the publication, which project an estimated annualized run rate of $75 million by the third quarter of this year. It's important to note, as specified in Prentis’s pitch deck, that these figures represent an estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equivalent to 20% of realized savings, not recognized revenue, and are contingent on performance and final execution.
Prentis asserts that its proprietary Hive-32B model demonstrates superior performance compared to leading rivals, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6. This claim is based on its results across two key computer-use benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena, which assesses end-to-end task completion within actual Windows applications, and ScreenSpot-v2, designed to evaluate a model's proficiency in accurately identifying on-screen controls.
The company’s pitch deck highlights that its competitive advantage stems from operating a considerably smaller and more cost-effective model. Prentis claims its solution offers approximately ten times lower cost per task compared to current frontier APIs, making it a more economical choice for widespread deployment across daily workflows. TechCrunch has not independently verified these benchmark results.
While Prentis is banking on the automation of everyday office tasks to soon surpass coding as AI's most significant application, it operates within an intensely competitive landscape. Several prominent players, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines, are also actively developing AI agents for computer interaction, as indicated by one source. Anthropic, in particular, has been aggressively expanding its talent pool in this domain, notably acquiring the Seattle-based computer-use startup Vercept earlier this year, integrating its founders and discontinuing its product line.
Prentis did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment regarding this article.
Ritankar Das, the CEO of Prentis, is also the founder of Titan, a holding company focused on incubating and operating AI enterprises. Now 31, Das holds the distinction of being UC Berkeley’s youngest University Medalist in over a century, having graduated at 18 with dual degrees in bioengineering and chemical biology before pursuing a master’s in biomedical engineering at Oxford.
He established Titan in 2014, following his departure from an AI PhD program at Cambridge, where he had been a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has characterized Titan's operational model as a deliberate return to a traditional holding-company structure, akin to Berkshire Hathaway, which funds its growth through its own successful exits rather than relying on external limited partners.
Titan’s portfolio includes other successful ventures such as Tala Health, an AI-powered virtual care provider that secured a $100 million seed round last year, and Forta Health, an autism care startup which raised $55 million in 2024, led by Insight Partners. Dascena, a disease prediction company also founded by Titan, was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.
For its other two co-founders, Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, Prentis appears to be a supplementary endeavor. Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock, announced last month his departure from Microsoft’s board after nearly a decade, citing a desire to enter "founder mode" for Manas AI, an AI drug-discovery startup he also supports. His extensive history in AI includes being an early investor in OpenAI and co-founding Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman before Microsoft absorbed the majority of that team in 2024.
Pincus, the founder of Zynga, currently leads the investment firm Reinvent Capital, where Hoffman serves as a senior adviser. Pincus also recently released his memoir, "Life at the Speed of Play," last month.
Prentis has already assembled a formidable team of over 25 employees, including researchers with prior experience at esteemed institutions such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba, according to information available on its website.
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