A group of former Anthropic researchers just raised $200 million before most startups figure out their Slack channels. Mirendil, a San Francisco-based AI company founded in early 2026, has closed a massive seed round to build autonomous AI systems designed to accelerate scientific research across fields like biology and materials science.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Nvidia, giving Mirendil the kind of war chest that most seed-stage companies can only dream about. For context, the median seed round in the US hovers around $3-4 million. Mirendil raised roughly 50 times that.
**Note to editor: The article’s core claim that Mirendil closed a $200 million round with Nvidia as a lead investor is directly contradicted by the research, which states the company was only “in advanced discussions” for a $175 million round led by a16z and Kleiner Perkins, with no confirmed closure and no confirmed Nvidia involvement. The article cannot be responsibly pruned into accurate form — it requires factual correction before publication.**
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Mirendil, a San Francisco-based AI company founded in early 2026, is in advanced discussions for a $175 million funding round at a valuation of approximately $1 billion. The round is being co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Kleiner Perkins. The funding has not yet been confirmed as closed.
The company was founded by former Anthropic researchers, including Behnam Neyshabur and Harsh Mehta. Mirendil aims to build autonomous AI systems that can generate hypotheses, run experiments, evaluate results, and iterate on findings, targeting domains like biology and materials science.
The company sits within what investors are calling the “neo-lab” category: startups using frontier AI capabilities to drive domain-specific research breakthroughs rather than building consumer-facing products.
There is a Solana-based meme token called $MIRENDIL, but it has no connection to the company.