The OpenAI mafia: Tracking the startups founded by former staff

OpenAI has become a massive incubator for the artificial intelligence industry, with former employees launching a wave of high-value startups. The company is reportedly in talks to finalize a $100 billion deal, valuing it at more than $850 billion. As talent departs the Silicon Valley giant, a powerful network of alumni-led companies is reshaping the technological landscape.

This network spans sectors from foundation models to robotics and enterprise software. Many of these ventures have secured significant funding, with some achieving multi-billion-dollar valuations even before launching public products.

Notable startups founded by OpenAI alumni include:

• Anthropic: Founded in 2021 by Dario and Daniela Amodei, the San Francisco-based company focuses on AI safety. OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined in 2024. Anthropic raised a $30 billion Series G (a late-stage funding round), valuing it at $380 billion. It is reportedly preparing for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) that could come sometime this year, while OpenAI is allegedly and maybe preparing for its own IPO this year.
• Safe Superintelligence: Co-founded in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel, by Ilya Sutskever. It has raised $2 billion at a valuation of $32 billion, operating with what co-founder and chief scientist Sutskever described as “one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence.”
• Thinking Machines Lab: Founded by former CTO Mira Murati, the San Francisco startup emerged from stealth in February 2025 and is valued at $12 billion.
• Perplexity: Co-founded by Aravind Srinivas. The San Francisco-based search engine last raised $200 million at a $20 billion valuation, but has faced controversy over alleged unethical web scraping.
• Adept AI Labs: Co-founded in 2021 by David Luan. The startup raised $350 million at a valuation north of $1 billion in 2023.
• Covariant: Founded in Berkeley, California, by Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan. In 2024, Amazon hired its founders, a move viewed as an attempt to avoid antitrust scrutiny.
• Periodic Labs: Co-founded by Liam Fedus. The startup emerged from stealth in September 2025 with $300 million in seed funding.
• Prosper Robotics: Co-founded in London by Shariq Hashme. The startup is developing a robot butler for people’s homes, competing with players like Norway’s 1X and Texas-based Apptronik.
• xAI: Co-founded by Kyle Kosic. Elon Musk’s startup was purchased by SpaceX, giving the combined entity a $1.25 trillion valuation, and is looking to go public in June.

Other ventures include Cresta, co-founded by Tim Shi, which raised over $270 million, and Daedalus, founded by Jonas Schneider, which raised a $21 million Series A last year. Margaret Jennings co-founded Kindo, which raised over $27 million. Maddie Hall co-founded Living Carbon, raising a $21 million Series A in 2023. Jeff Arnold co-founded Pilot, which raised a $100 million Series C in 2021 at a $1.2 billion valuation. Angela Jiang launched Worktrace in April 2025, and Emmett Shear launched Stem AI in 2024.

Why it matters

The rapid growth of these ventures highlights the significant influence of OpenAI alumni in the AI startup ecosystem. By founding major companies that have raised billions in funding, this network is establishing a new center of gravity for technological development.