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OpenAI Secures New $6.6BN Funding, $157BN Valuation

Thom Carter

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openai funding
“We’re grateful to our investors for their trust in us, and we look forward to working with our partners, developers, and the broader community to shape an AI-powered ecosystem and future that benefits everyone,” wrote the firm.

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT and arguably one the most important AI firms in operation today, has announced it’s raised $6.6 billion (£5bn~) in new funding, and also received a $157bn (£119bn~) post-money valuation.

The San Francisco-headquartered company said that its latest cash injection would enable it to “double down” on its leadership in frontier AI research, as well as “increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.”

The round was led by Thrive Capital, the New York City-based and tech-oriented venture capital firm, according to The Guardian, with other participants including Nvidia, the chipmaker giant, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group, and MGX, the tech investment firm from Abu Dhabi.

“We aim to make advanced intelligence a widely accessible resource. We’re grateful to our investors for their trust in us, and we look forward to working with our partners, developers, and the broader community to shape an AI-powered ecosystem and future that benefits everyone,” wrote the firm in a statement to announce the news.

“Every week, over 250 million people around the world use ChatGPT to enhance their work, creativity, and learning,” the AI company also said.

“Across industries, businesses are improving productivity and operations, and developers are leveraging our platform to create a new generation of applications. And we’re only getting started.”


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The news of the funding and valuation follows a string of recent higher-up departures from the company.

Yesterday, DIGIT writer Tom Quinn covered how Durk Kingma, one of the lesser known co-founders of the AI firm, announced that he’ll leave the company to join rival company Anthropic in order to develop powerful AI systems “responsibly.”

Kingma’s decision to leave the company comes on the heels of the departure of John Schulman, another co-founder of OpenAI, earlier this year, as well as other senior members such as Mira Murati, ex-chief technology officer, among others.

The latest funding also comes amid reports that the AI company is planning to restructure to a for-profit benefit corporation, though the firm was originally founded as a non-profit. CEO Sam Altman recently stated that the departure of Murati and two others—Barret Zoph and Bob McGrew—wasn’t related to any restructuring.

In its funding and valuation update, OpenAI gave no details regarding any potential restructuring.

Thom Carter

Staff Writer, DIGIT

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