Kevin Weil, former OpenAI CPO, is raising $150M at a $750M valuation for an AI science startup, as AI focus moves from chatbots to science.
Kevin Weil, the former chief product officer of OpenAI, is raising $150 million for a new AI science startup at a valuation of at least $750 million, three people with knowledge of the discussions said. The terms are not final and could change, the sources said. Weil did not respond to a request for comment.
Weil left OpenAI earlier this year, where he oversaw product and later led science initiatives. He ran Prism, a workspace that brought frontier AI models into scientists' workflows. Before OpenAI, Weil was a product executive at Meta and Twitter, leading product for Instagram and Twitter's advertising business. He holds board seats at Cisco and Stoke Space.
The exact details of his new startup are not public. Sources said Weil has pitched it as a way to gather scientific data for AI models. The round would be one of the larger early-stage financings in the AI-for-science sector, though the investor lineup is not yet known.
Weil is not the only senior OpenAI leader to leave recently. Brad Lightcap, the company's longtime chief operating officer, announced he was leaving after eight years to start something new. Fidji Simo stepped down as CEO of applications in July, citing health reasons, and moved to a part-time advisory role. In April, Sora head Bill Peebles and business applications CTO Srinivas Narayanan also departed.
The AI-for-science space is drawing heavy competition. Periodic Labs, founded by former OpenAI researcher Liam Fedus and former Google DeepMind researcher Ekin Dogus Cubuk, is building AI scientists that work with autonomous laboratories running physical experiments. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Jeff Bezos, and Eric Schmidt.
Last week, Google chief scientist Jeff Dean and three colleagues left to start Discovery Loop, an AI startup focused on science and engineering applications.
The exits and new ventures come as AI focus shifts from chatbots to science.
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