Prentis, an artificial intelligence research laboratory specializing in computer-use automation, is currently negotiating a $100 million funding round at a $1 billion valuation. Co-founded in April by entrepreneur Ritankar Das alongside technology investors Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus, the startup is developing autonomous AI agents designed to navigate and execute routine office workflows across multiple software systems. The company’s proprietary Hive-32B model is engineered to manage end-to-end tasks in enterprise environments, such as processing insurance claims and resolving customs duty exceptions, without direct human intervention. According to internal pitch materials, Prentis claims its model surpasses leading frontier systems on standardized computer-use benchmarks, including WindowsAgentArena and ScreenSpot-v2. The startup emphasizes a cost-efficiency advantage, projecting its deployment costs to be approximately ten times lower than major cloud-based AI APIs, positioning it for scalable adoption in everyday business operations. While these benchmark results and performance metrics remain unaudited, the company has already secured customer contracts valued at up to $50 million. Prentis anticipates reaching a $75 million annualized run rate by the third quarter of this year, though these projections are based on performance-dependent fee structures rather than recognized revenue. Prentis is entering a rapidly evolving and highly competitive sector. Major industry players, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines Lab, are concurrently developing specialized computer-use agents, with Anthropic recently consolidating its position through the acquisition of Seattle-based Vercept. Prentis operates on the premise that automating administrative and operational tasks will soon surpass software development as the most lucrative application of artificial intelligence. The leadership team brings extensive experience across venture capital, enterprise technology, and AI research. Chief Executive Ritankar Das, founder of the AI holding company Titan, graduated from UC Berkeley at age eighteen and previously held a Gates Cambridge scholarship. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and partner at Greylock Partners, has transitioned from his decade-long tenure on Microsoft’s board to focus on his ventures, including Prentis and the drug-discovery startup Manas AI. Marc Pincus, founder of Zynga and current head of Reinvent Capital, joins the initiative as a strategic co-founder. To date, Prentis has recruited more than twenty-five personnel, bringing in former researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba. The company continues to scale its development efforts amid intense industry competition and growing enterprise demand for operational automation.