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Applied Compute

appliedcompute.comadded 2026-09-02
Lead investor lineup escalates fast: Benchmark seed → Kleiner Perkins Series B → Elad Gil in the latest talks, signaling sustained top-tier conviction within 14 months

Worth-Joining Index · Scorecard

v2.1 ALPHA · 2026-08

Career Score

/100

Coverage

51%

Verified

17%

Stage cohort

Early

Vibe Check

🎪 community voting coming soon

Momentum
0.7/4
Efficiency
unknown
Backing
7/8
Market
7.7/11
Product
6.6/11
Upside
6/8

Latest valuation

$1.3B (Series B, 2026-04)

Funding talks · 2026-09

Total raised

$160M total raised as of April 2026

as of 2026-04
强化学习企业AI Agent模型定制Founded · 2025Stage · Growth (Series B)HQ · San Francisco

Traction · Key numbers

Valuation pace~30x in 14 months: ~$100M (May 2025) → $3.25B in talks (Sep 2026) Company-claimedas of 2026-09
Total raised~$160M total raised as of April 2026 Company-claimedas of 2026-04

Funding

Total raised

$160M total raised as of April 2026

Rounds

4

Valuation pace

~$100M

$350M

Funding talks · 2026-09 · valuation $1.3B post (Series B, 2026-04) · led by Kleiner Perkins

Nearly doubled again just 4 months after prior valuation

Funding talks · 2026-01 · led by Kleiner Perkins

In talks, valuation more than doubled in ~3 months

$80M

Funding round · 2025-10 · valuation $500M post

About 3 months after the seed, valuation up 5x

S

$20M

Seed · 2025-06 · valuation $100M post · led by Benchmark

With: Sequoia, Conviction, Hanabi Capital, Definition · Led by Benchmark partner Victor Lazarte

Lead investor lineup escalates fast: Benchmark seed → Kleiner Perkins Series B → Elad Gil in the latest talks, signaling sustained top-tier conviction within 14 months

One of the steepest valuation curves in the current AI infra wave — but disclosed revenue hasn't kept pace, a sign this may be expectation-priced rather than metric-priced

Founders

Yash Patil CEO

Stanford grad, ex-OpenAI Codex team, worked on agentic software systems

Rhythm Garg Co-founder

Ex-OpenAI, core contributor to the o1 reasoning model

Linden Li Co-founder

Ex-OpenAI, focused on ML infrastructure and RL training systems

Reality · Working here

H1B / PERMUnknown
Remote policyUnknown
Comp modelUnknown
GlassdoorUnknown — work here? Help us fill this in →
Equity liquidityUnknown
Hiring statusUnknown

Signals & Risks

CustomersDoorDash
CompetitorsOpenAIMercorScale AI
ValuationValuation jumped from $100M to $3.25B talks in 14 months, far outpacing any disclosed revenue growth — a clear bubble risk
Key-personCore edge rests heavily on three founders' OpenAI RL research pedigree; small team means high key-person risk
CompetitionEnterprise RL-customization/agent space is being contested by OpenAI itself and several emerging rivals; moat unproven

Editorial ✎

Good fit for

· RL-research-minded engineers who want to stress-test their methodology on real enterprise agent deployments

· People who want to work alongside o1/Codex-caliber researchers and can handle an early-stage, high-intensity pace

· Those who believe custom enterprise model tuning becomes core AI infrastructure demand

Not for

· Those who want a mature team, established process, and a proven customer base — the core team is still small and everything is unproven

· Candidates uncomfortable with valuation-run-ahead-of-revenue situations who need hard revenue metrics to decide

Ask in the interview

1. What is current ARR/revenue, and what multiple does that imply against the $3.25B valuation in talks?

2. Beyond the founders' OpenAI pedigree, what is the actual technical moat — why can't OpenAI or a hyperscaler build this in-house?

3. What are the founders' equity/retention structures, given how much of the company's story rests on three specific people?

Data changelog

Community corrections → editorial review → applied, fully on the record

2026-09-02
最近一轮领投机构 filled in as Kleiner Perkins

data as of 2026-04 · Source: Phemex News

Publicly verifiable
2026-09-02
累计融资额 filled in as $160M total raised as of April 2026

data as of 2026-04 · Source: Phemex News

Publicly verifiable
2026-09-02
最近一轮估值 filled in as $1.3B post (Series B, 2026-04)

data as of 2026-04 · Source: Phemex News

Publicly verifiable
Spot an error? Submit a correction → — you can correct facts, never negotiate scores.

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