What happened

Thinking Machines, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is negotiating more than $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, according to The Information (3 September 2026). Annualised revenue is above $100 million. That comes to roughly 400 times. TechCrunch calls the multiple exceptionally high.

Cognition, the company behind the coding assistant Devin, is raising $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation. Four months earlier the figure was $26 billion; the new one is 1.85 times that. Cognition puts its annualised revenue at $900 million, up from $492 million. It does not say how that is calculated (TechCrunch, 8 September 2026).

Wonderful, an Israeli-Dutch AI start-up, is raising $550 million in a Series C. Valuation: $5 billion, 2.5 times the round just under six months earlier. Insight Partners leads again, and Salesforce joins. The report gives no revenue figure (TechCrunch, 2 September 2026).

Nscale, a British AI infrastructure company, is in talks with Nvidia over $2 billion in additional funding, according to Bloomberg (4 September 2026). A stock market listing is possible this month. The $103 billion mentioned in that context is a projection from signed lease contracts.

Mistral has raised €3 billion at a valuation above €21 billion, led by Samsung Electronics, with ASML on board. By its own account, it is the largest equity round by a European technology company (TechCrunch, 8 September 2026).

Nvidia has a seat at the table

Nvidia is an investor in three of these five rounds: in Nscale, in Mistral as an existing investor, and in Thinking Machines' previous round. A chipmaker among the backers of the AI companies is a circle worth keeping an eye on.

What this means for you

Valuations are running well ahead of reported revenue, and the methods behind that revenue remain partly in the dark. One name from Germany comes up this week, as a parallel: TechCrunch recalls the merger of Aleph Alpha with Cohere. None of the reports gives a timeline for the German market.

If you buy from one of these vendors, ask one question first: how do you calculate your revenue? Anyone without an answer has already given you one.