Prentis AI Lab Raises $100M to Automate Office Work with Computer-Control Models

An emerging AI research lab called Prentis is close to securing $100 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation, building on early customer interest for its computer-control technology. The venture, established in April and co-founded by entrepreneur Ritankar Das alongside prominent tech investors Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is focused on training AI models to automate day-to-day office workflows.

The Business Model#

Prentis is developing AI agents capable of learning how knowledge workers interact with documents and software systems, then automating those same tasks at scale. Early customers span healthcare, manufacturing, and retail sectors, with the company having already signed contracts valued at approximately $50 million. The startup's pitch materials suggest an estimated $75 million annualized run rate by late 2026, though these figures are based on a 20% cut of customer savings rather than recognized revenue and remain performance-dependent.

The company positions automation of routine business processes—such as processing insurance claims and managing customs refunds—as an opportunity that could eventually eclipse coding as the primary use case for enterprise AI.

Competitive Advantages and Claims#

Prentis touts its proprietary Hive-32B model as superior to larger rivals on two industry benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena, which measures task completion on actual Windows applications, and ScreenSpot-v2, which tests on-screen element identification. The startup claims its strength lies in running a significantly smaller, more cost-efficient model—roughly one-tenth the expense per task of leading APIs—making it more practical for widespread workplace deployment. TechCrunch has not independently confirmed these benchmark results.

The field is becoming increasingly competitive. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab are all pursuing similar technology, with Anthropic having acquired Seattle-based Vercept earlier this year to bolster its own computer-use capabilities.

About the Founders#

Ritankar Das, Prentis' chief executive, leads Titan, a holding company that builds and operates AI ventures. At 31, Das became UC Berkeley's youngest University Medalist in over a century, graduating at 18 with a dual degree in bioengineering and chemical biology before completing a master's in biomedical engineering at Oxford. He founded Titan in 2014 after leaving a PhD program in AI at Cambridge, where he held a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

Titan has launched several ventures, including the virtual care platform Tala Health, which raised a $100 million seed round in 2025, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that secured $55 million in 2024. Another Titan-backed company, Dascena, was acquired by CirrusDx in 2022.