OpenAI raises $6.6 billion in a global financing round economy

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has closed its long-awaited funding round at a valuation of $157 billion, including $6.6 billion raised by the company from an extensive list of investment firms and major technology companies, according to the CEBC website.

While OpenAI did not mention the names of the investors in a press release yesterday, Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said that the round was led by Thrive Capital and also included participation from Microsoft, as well as chip manufacturing company Nvidia, SoftBank, and others. Thrive Capital was planning to invest $1 billion in the round, CEBC previously reported.

OpenAI’s meteoric rise, which began with the launch of GBT Chat, has been the technology industry’s biggest event of the past two years, introducing the concept of generative AI to the technology world and paving the way for billions of dollars in AI infrastructure investments.

“The new funding will enable us to strengthen our leadership in advanced AI research, increase computational power, and continue building tools that help people solve difficult problems,” OpenAI said in its blog yesterday.

The company achieved revenues of $300 million last September, an increase of 1,700% since the beginning of last year, according to what the CEBC website confirmed after a report by the New York Times.

The company expects to achieve sales of $11.6 billion next year, an increase from $3.7 billion in 2024, according to a person close to the company who requested anonymity because the financial numbers are confidential.

But all this revenue comes at a very high cost, as OpenAI must increase its purchases of graphics processing units from Nvidia to train and run its large language models, and the company expects to incur a loss of $5 billion this year, according to the person mentioned.

OpenAI earlier held a meeting for all employees, after the board of directors decided to consider restructuring the company into a for-profit company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, stated that the departure of some employees was not related to a potential restructuring, contrary to some media reports.

The source said that if the change occurs, the non-profit sector will remain a separate entity, but at the meeting Altman denied reports indicating plans related to him receiving a large share of shares in the company, describing this information as incorrect, according to a person who attended the meeting.