A new “unicorn at birth” has entered the AI race. Unconventional AI, a two-month-old startup founded by former Databricks AI chief Naveen Rao, has raised $475M at a $4.5B valuation in a seed round. Backed by a16z, Lightspeed, Lux, DCVC, and Jeff Bezos, the company is targeting one of AI’s hardest problems: building a more energy-efficient computer for next-generation AI workloads as power and compute constraints intensify.

Global venture capital reached $120.7 billion in Q3 2025, the fourth straight quarter of growth, according to KPMG’s Venture Pulse Report. AI dominated funding flows, with Anthropic ($13B), xAI ($10B), and Mistral ($1.5B) among the largest rounds. From the U.S. to Europe and Canada, investors are pouring record sums into both model builders and applied AI startups—cementing AI as the gravity well of global VC.

Thinking Machines is likely building it's own ChatGPT style model given the background of most of its team (shown here). That could position them as an attractive acquisition target from the mega tech corps who are struggling to keep up with Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.