rl-list.com · Vendors · Matrices
#17
Matrices
Commercial medium confidence
matrices.ai ↗ · Status: active reported · Founded 2023
Matrices builds reinforcement-learning training environments for frontier AI labs to train agents that use computers and browsers like humans, described as a 'gamified replica of the internet' where thousands of agents learn via RL. The company frames its mission as 'towards self-driving computers' and says it helps labs train computer-use agents (Operator-class systems). Note: this is the correct browser-native entity (matrices.ai / LinkedIn 'matricesapp'), distinct from the similarly named 'Matrice.ai' computer-vision company and 'Matrix AI Network' blockchain project.
Key facts
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, USAreported cite
Headcount band
11-50reported cite
Total raised
$5Mreported cite
Last round
Seed, $5M, 2024-03 (reported; date and amount per Caplight; amount also in a 2025-07-22 third-party article)reported cite
SOC 2
unknown
What they sell
environmentsconfirmed cite
Open source
noestimated
Deployment
managed-hosted (inferred); commercial access is contact-only with no self-serve plans or published pricingestimated cite
What's new
- 29 Apr 2026other
Matrices listed in Specter Monitor #225 'Investor Signals of the Week' (featured 2x in 90 days)
A third-party investor-signal newsletter listed Matrices as getting repeated investor attention. Its description is the old one ('AI-driven spreadsheet that automates research tasks using parallel AI agents'). It names Dina Y., John Qian and Leonardo Axel Setyanto as founders and gives no round details.
Why it matters: This is only a weak sign of possible fundraising interest. It does not confirm a new round, and its product description is stale.
- 5 Apr 2026other
Aggregator signal: headcount up 42% quarter over quarter, 19 to 27 (Caplight)
Caplight's market signals show 42% QoQ growth from 19 to 27 employees on 2026-04-05, after an earlier 16-to-32 signal on 2026-03-21. Caplight's own current figure is 12, and LinkedIn shows 14. The numbers contradict each other.
Why it matters: This is a soft and inconsistent signal. The company may have scaled in early 2026, but the current figures suggest it has not kept that size or that the data is noisy.
Founding team
John Qian
Co-Founder
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Former Weights & Biases colleague Ramit Goolry later joined as founding engineer. Both the LinkedIn company page and Tracxn list Qian as a founder.
Leonardo Axel Setyanto
Co-Founder (listed as CTO by Caplight; current status at Matrices unverified)
Attended UT Austin (2010-2012) and was previously an engineer at the startup Loku. His LinkedIn top card now lists OpenAI as his current company, with no date shown, while his GitHub still lists @matrices-app. He may have moved to OpenAI; this is reported but not confirmed.
What practitioners should know
For researchers
- No papers, benchmarks, datasets or original open-source repos by Matrices were found. The matrices-app GitHub org contains only forks and test repos. The approach is described only in marketing terms: a simulated or recreated internet with repeatable start states and task-level RL feedback for multimodal computer-use agents.
- A 'level editor' for contributor-built tasks is described as a roadmap item. It has not been released.
For program managers
- Seed stage: $5M reported, dated 2024-03 by Caplight. AI Grant is confirmed as an investor; Index Ventures is reported; Naval Ravikant comes from a single source. No new round was found through 2026-10-05.
- Frontier-lab ties are self-claimed only ('7-figure contracts with leading AI labs', July 2025), and no lab is named.
- Key-person risk: co-founder/CTO Leonardo Axel Setyanto's LinkedIn now lists OpenAI as his current company. Ask the vendor to confirm who leads the team today.
- Access is by direct contact only, with no self-serve tier and no public pricing.
For data ops
- No public API docs, integration formats, security page or SOC 2 statement were found.
- matrices.ai, its careers page and matrices.app all returned HTTP 503 to automated fetches on 2026-10-05, so first-party site content could not be checked.
Products
Matrices simulated computer-use training environments ↗
Simulated computer and website environments for training and evaluating multimodal LLM agents on realistic computer-use tasks. They offer repeatable starting states and task-level feedback for RL. The team says its broader goal is to recreate the parts of the internet and the workflows that agents need to practice on, and it runs many agent attempts at high throughput. Access for AI labs and agent teams is arranged directly with the company: there are no self-serve plans and no published pricing (third-party listing, last reviewed 2026-08-30). A 2025 article described the product as a 'gamified replica of the internet'. All capability statements here are self-described.
Level editor (roadmap item) ↗
A third-party listing describes this as a roadmap item that would let outside contributors build simulated tasks. It has no launch date and no published terms.
Scale & velocity
Current headcount
~12-20 employees (sources conflict: LinkedIn shows 14 associated employees on 2026-10-05; Tracxn 19 as of 2026-05-31; Caplight 12 current, with earlier 2026 signals of 27-32)reported cite
Headcount growth
unknown
Open roles
unknown cite
Other locations
unknown
Distributed / remote
unknown
Research depth
Has researchers
unknown
Researcher count
unknown
Backgrounds
Co-founder John Qian: UIUC, Co-founder Leonardo Axel Setyanto: UT Austin, ex-Loku. His LinkedIn now lists OpenAI as current company (undated); his ongoing role at Matrices is unverified, Early co-founder Dina Y.: background unknownreported cite
Papers / benchmarks
unknown
Capital
Total raised
$5M (Seed, 2024-03; reported by Caplight and theinflectionpoint.ai 2025-07-22; no new round found through 2026-10-05)reported cite
Last round
Seed, $5M, 2024-03 (reported; date and amount per Caplight; amount also in a 2025-07-22 third-party article)reported cite
Investors
AI Grant (Batch 3; confirmed on aigrant.com), Index Ventures (reported), Naval Ravikant (reported, single source)reported cite
Valuation
unknown
Revenue signals
Self-claimed '7-figure contracts with multiple/top AI labs'; no verified figurereported cite
Security & compliance
SOC 2
unknown
Other certifications
unknown
Security page
unknown
Product
What they sell
environmentsconfirmed cite
Open source
noestimated
License
unknown
Deployment model
managed-hosted (inferred); commercial access is contact-only with no self-serve plans or published pricingestimated cite
Maturity
unknown
Notable customers
Unnamed frontier AI labs (described as signing 7-figure contracts; agents like OpenAI 'Operator' referenced as the type they help train) self-claimed cite
Buyer analysis
Best fit: A frontier lab needing large-scale, realistic browser/computer-use RL environments to train and evaluate web-navigating agents.
How we verified this
2026-10-05 refresh: I re-opened every draft source except the RL List page itself. Caplight, The Rundown, LinkedIn, Tracxn, Specter and theinflectionpoint.ai largely matched the draft, but several details were overstated or misattributed. The Rundown does not contain 'gamified replica'. The level editor is a roadmap item, not an announcement. Caplight's 16-to-32 headcount signal falls before the window. Tracxn does not say Qian co-founded another company. I added three things. AI Grant's own portfolio page lists Matrices in Batch 3, which confirms that investor from a primary source. Setyanto's own LinkedIn post corroborates the third co-founder, Dina Y. His LinkedIn top card also now shows OpenAI as his current company, with no date; this is a possible departure of the CTO that procurement and program teams should confirm with the vendor. I added a verified GitHub headshot for Setyanto and found no verifiable photos for John Qian or Dina Y. The web-search budget was exhausted, so I could not run fresh searches for missed news. My check for missed items was limited to direct fetches of known pages, and an unindexed 2026 announcement cannot be ruled out. matrices.ai, matrices.ai/careers and matrices.app all returned HTTP 503.
Related vendors
Sources
- www.caplight.com/company/matrices · 2026-10-05, Seed $5M on 2024-03-01; investors AI Grant and Index Ventures; 12 current employees; signals 2026-03-21 (16 to 32) and 2026-04-05 (19 to 27); lists Setyanto as Co-Founder & CTO.
- aigrant.com/ · 2026-10-05, AI Grant portfolio lists 'Matrices (matrices.app), AI-native spreadsheet' in Batch 3. Primary confirmation that AI Grant is an investor.
- www.therundown.ai/tools/matrices · 2026-10-05, Product description, pivot from spreadsheet, contact-only access with no self-serve plans, level editor as a roadmap item. Last reviewed 2026-08-30.
- www.linkedin.com/company/matricesapp · 2026-10-05, Tagline, 11-50 band, 14 employees, 200 Ritch St SF, founded 2023, website matrices.ai.
- www.linkedin.com/in/axelsetyanto/ · 2026-10-05, Top card shows OpenAI as current company. A post from about two years ago names John Qian and Dina Y. as co-founders. UT Austin; Loku.
- www.linkedin.com/in/qianjohn/ · 2026-10-05, John Qian, UIUC, co-founder of Matrices.
- github.com/laxels · 2026-10-05, Leonardo Axel Setyanto's GitHub. Links to in/axelsetyanto; company @matrices-app; real-photo avatar used as headshot.
- tracxn.com/d/companies/matrices/__ZJZYPaHQVI36aOdqiIFAQCzYo2o_oy7cIBgidp · 2026-10-05, Founders John Qian and Leonardo Axel Setyanto; 19 employees as of 2026-05-31; stale spreadsheet description; 'Unfunded' label is incorrect.
- insights.tryspecter.com/specter-monitor-225/ · 2026-10-05, 2026-04-29 investor-signal mention (featured 2x in 90 days); founders listed as Dina Y., John Qian and Leonardo Axel Setyanto.
- theinflectionpoint.ai/p/building-a-fake-internet-for-ai-agents · 2026-10-05, Dated 2025-07-22: $5M from Index, AI Grant and Naval; 7-figure lab contracts (self-claimed); team of 3; 'gamified replica of the internet'.
- matrices.ai/ · 2026-10-05, HTTP 503 on fetch; content could not be verified.
- matrices.ai/careers · 2026-06-07, Careers description (via search snippet): computer-use environments, gamified replica of internet, Operator, 7-figure lab contracts, $5M from Index Ventures/AI Grant/Naval Ravikant.
- www.crunchbase.com/organization/matrices-f9d0 · 2026-06-07, Crunchbase profile (403 on direct fetch); referenced via search for funding/HQ.
- tracxn.com/d/companies/matrices/ · 2026-06-07, Tracxn profile: founded 2023, SF, founders John Qian & Leonardo Axel Setyanto; lists earlier spreadsheet product (likely stale).
- rocketreach.co/matrices-management_b6cf945ec78254fc · 2026-06-07, Management: John Qian (Co-Founder), Leonardo Setyanto (Co-Founder/CTO), Ramit Goolry (Founding Engineer); ~20 employees; website matrices.app.
- techcrunch.com/2025/09/21/silicon-valley-bets-big-on-environments-to-tra · 2026-06-07, Market context on RL environments vendors; Matrices not named in this piece.
Last updated 2026-10-05 · Every quantitative field carries a source and a confidence tag. Fields we could not source publicly are marked unknown, never estimated. See the methodology.