OpenAI is committing up to $1.5 billion to a new joint venture with private equity firms designed to accelerate adoption of its workplace tools, according to the Financial Times.
A funding round valuing the venture at $10 billion is on track to close in early May, Reuters reported; the entity, incorporated in Delaware as an LLC and referred to internally as DeployCo, will receive an initial $500 million equity stake from OpenAI, with the option to contribute an additional $1 billion later.
A group of outside investors — TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield, and Goanna Capital — will collectively contribute $4 billion to the venture. Under the terms of the arrangement, OpenAI has committed to a 17.5% annual return for those backers over a five-year investment window, and will retain super-voting shares in the entity.
Enterprise adoption is the central strategic goal behind the new entity, an area where Anthropic has long been regarded as the stronger competitor, with deeper penetration among large corporate customers. As Reuters noted in a March report, private equity firms — which own or influence a large swath of enterprise businesses and shape how those companies allocate software and AI budgets — had become a key target for both OpenAI and Anthropic in their competition for that market.
None of the parties involved — OpenAI, TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield, or Goanna Capital — had provided comment to Reuters by the time of publication.