According to Bloomberg News on December 24, people familiar with the matter revealed that the Open Artificial Intelligence Research Center (OpenAI) funded by Microsoft Corporation is in preliminary discussions and intends to conduct a new round of financing at a valuation of $100 billion or moreThe deal will cement the developer's position as one of the world's most valuable startups.
According to the person who requested anonymity, investors who may have participated in the round have already participated in preliminary talks. The specific details of the terms, valuation and timing of the round of financing have not yet been determined, and there is still room for change, the people said.
According to statistics from CB Ventures, if this funding round goes as planned, the AI "darling" will become the second most valuable start-up in the United States, after Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies.
OpenAI declined to comment.
Bloomberg previously reported that the San Francisco, Calif.-based company will complete a separate share offer in early January next year, allowing its employees to sell their holdings at a valuation of $86 billion. The person in charge of the work was Thrive Capital, which found that investor demand exceeded the size available for investment, the people said.
OpenAI's valuation has skyrocketed, mirroring the AI boom it sparked after the release of ChatGPT a year ago. The company became Silicon Valley's hottest startup, raising $13 billion from Microsoft to date and sparked an up-to-date understanding of the promise of artificial intelligence that has changed the tech landscape in just a few months.
Amazon.com Inc. and Google's parent company, Alphabet, have since injected billions of dollars into OpenAI's rival Anthropic.
Investors, led by SAFTSE, invested in the company (valued at $4.5 billion). And Nvidia said earlier this month that it has made more than 24 investments in 2023. Nvidia has designed a number of semiconductors for artificial intelligence tasks.
OpenAI has also held talks with Abu Dhabi, UAE-based G42 Group to finance a new chip company, according to people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI has discussed plans to raise between $8 billion and $10 billion from the G42 group, one of the people said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been looking for capital for a chip manufacturing project codenamed "Tigris". As Bloomberg reported last month, the goal of the project is to produce semiconductors that can compete with Nvidia's productsThe latter currently controls the AI chip market.
In October this year, G42 Group announced a partnership with OpenAI to "provide cutting-edge AI solutions to the UAE and regional markets". G42 Group did not provide financial details of the collaboration. Established in 2018, the G42 Group is led by Tanun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE*** advisor and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
Following the abrupt dismissal of Altman by the company's board of directors earlier last month, OpenAI's outlook looked shaky for a while. At the time, some investors considered their stakes** to zero. However, after five days of leadership turmoil, Altman returned and the company appointed a new board of directors to signal to customers that the company would refocus on the product itself after the turmoil.