OpenAI’s main goal this year was to raise the funds it needed to keep operating. In its race to lead the artificial intelligence industry, the company was burning through money at an astonishing rate. After weeks of negotiations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman secured exactly what he needed: $6.6 billion in venture capital from a variety of investors.
According to Bloomberg, this is one of the largest private investments in history. The size of the latest financing round gives the AI startup a valuation of more than $150 billion. Very few other companies have received the same attention from investors. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is among the outliers. SpaceX has revolutionized the space sector, and there’s no doubt investors are hoping OpenAI does the same.
One of the Largest Private Investments in History
There’s not much information available about OpenAI’s latest investment round. According to sources familiar with the process, it was organized by Thrive Capital. In August, rumors suggested that companies like Apple and Nvidia were interested in participating. It was later reported that Apple had decided not to invest in OpenAI to maintain a “neutral” position.
Nevertheless, the new capital injected into OpenAI will be crucial for the company to remain competitive. Training AI models is a very expensive process. To put this into perspective, although Microsoft has invested over $10 billion in the company, it hasn’t been enough. Additionally, the revenue OpenAI generates from its products, such as the API for its ChatGPT models and payment plans, is still relatively low.
OpenAI, which has been relatively quiet about its plans, recently announced the arrival of additional venture capital. In a blog post, the company said, “The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.”
The announcement comes after several significant developments within the company. On one hand, several founding members decided to leave OpenAI following a crisis in November. During that time, the board of directors temporarily removed Altman as CEO and then reinstated him. On the other hand, it seems that Altman intends to move the company away from its original altruistic goals in order to attract more investors.
Over the past two years, OpenAI has emerged as a major player in the field of AI. In November 2022, the company introduced ChatGPT, a groundbreaking product. Subsequent innovations include the release of large language models such as GPT-4 and GPT-4o, a Her-style advanced voice mode, and model 01 with “reasoning” capabilities.
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