OpenAI has completed a long-awaited funding round valuing it at $157 billion, including $6.6 billion the company raised from numerous investment firms and large tech companies.
While OpenAI did not name the investors in Wednesday’s press release, a person familiar with the matter said the round was led by Thrive Capital and existing backers also participated. Microsoft and chip manufacturers NVIDIASoftBank, etc. According to a previous report by CNBC, Thrive plans to raise US$1 billion in this round of financing.
OpenAI’s meteoric rise, which began with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, became the biggest story in the tech industry over the past few years, bringing the concept of generative artificial intelligence into the mainstream and paving the way for tens of billions of dollars in revenue investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. .
“The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in cutting-edge AI research, increase computing power, and continue building tools that help people solve difficult problems,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
According to the New York Times, CNBC confirmed last week that OpenAI had revenue of $300 million last month, a 1,700% increase since the beginning of last year. According to a person close to OpenAI, the company expects sales to reach $11.6 billion next year, up from $3.7 billion in 2024.
But all this revenue comes at an extremely high cost, as OpenAI must increase its purchases of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) to train and run its large language models. The company expects to lose about $5 billion this year, the person said. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and is a key partner as the software giant strengthens its Azure cloud business.
Earlier this year, OpenAI was reportedly valued at $80 billion, up from $29 billion in 2023. .
OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told CNBC in a statement that the number of weekly active users on ChatGPT has reached 250 million. A person close to the company said there are also 11 million ChatGPT Plus subscribers and 1 million paying enterprise users on ChatGPT.
“Artificial intelligence is already enabling personalized learning, accelerating healthcare breakthroughs and increasing productivity,” Friar said in a statement. “This is just the beginning.”
OpenAI has experienced many growing pains along the way, including the loss of key executives, a trend that continued into last week.
Last Wednesday, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer who briefly served as interim CEO, said she would leave the company after six and a half years on the job. Shortly thereafter, head of research Bob McGrew and vice president of research Barret Zoph said they were leaving the company.
In an interview at the Italian Technology Week on the second day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: “I think this is a great transformation for everyone involved, and I hope that OpenAI can become stronger because of it, just like we have As it does for all transformations.
On Thursday, OpenAI held an all-hands meeting and the board decided to consider restructuring the company into a for-profit business, according to another person familiar with the matter. Altman said that contrary to some media reports, the departures were not related to a potential restructuring.
If changes occur, the nonprofit sector will continue as a separate entity, sources said.
At Thursday’s meeting, Altman denied reports that he planned to take a “significant stake” in the company, calling the information “untrue,” according to a person who attended.
OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor told CNBC in a statement last week that while the board had discussed the matter, there was no specific number.
“The board has discussed whether having Sam receive equity compensation would be beneficial to the company and our mission, but no specific numbers have been discussed and no decision has been made,” Taylor said.
The latest funding round also includes participation from Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, MGX and Tiger Global, sources told CNBC.
watch: SoftBank to invest $500 million in OpenAI
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