Applied Compute
Ex-OpenAI trio applying RL to build specialist enterprise models
Applied Compute, founded by ex-OpenAI researchers who worked on o1 and Codex, uses reinforcement learning and company-specific environments to train specialist frontier models for enterprises. It launched publicly in October 2025 with $80M raised, led by Benchmark and Sequoia.
Reported in talks (Jan 2026) at $1.3B valuation; founders are recent Stanford grads
| Website | appliedcompute.com |
|---|---|
| Domains | Enterprise, Machine Learning, Custom Environments |
| Location | San Francisco |
| Team size | 11-25 |
| Founded | 2025 |
| Funding | $80M total at $700M valuation (Oct 2025) |
| Raising | Yes |
| Founders | Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, Yash Patil |
Similar startups
Also listed under Enterprise, Machine Learning, Custom Environments.
| Name | Domains | Location | Team | Funding | Raising |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rise Data Labs US-based expert human data and custom RL environments for enterprise AI | Computer Use, Coding, Finance, Cybersecurity, Legal, Data Labeling, Enterprise, Multi-Domain, RLHF, Custom Environments | United States | - | - | Yes |
| AIChamp Custom enterprise-workflow RL environments with expert grading | Enterprise, Long Horizon, Custom Environments | San Francisco | 1-10 | - | - |
| Akhara Enterprise and code RL environments | Enterprise, Coding | San Francisco | 1-10 | - | - |
| Artificial Analysis Independent benchmarking of AI models across intelligence, speed, and price | Multi-Domain, Machine Learning | San Francisco | 11-25 | $2.6M (2024) | - |
| BenchFlow Open-source benchmark hub and eval infrastructure for agents | Enterprise, Browser, Coding | San Francisco | 1-10 | ~$1M (reported) | - |
| Bespoke Labs Data curation and RL environment recipes from ex-Google DeepMind researchers | Coding, Machine Learning | Mountain View, Menlo Park, Bangalore, San Francisco | 11-25 | ~$40M (reported) | - |