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Sam Altman’s OpenAI has closed a new $40 billion fundraising deal that almost doubles the firm’s valuation and cements it as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.
The artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT said late Monday that the fundraising values it at $300 billion, compared to $157 billion in October. The round was led by Japanese investment firm SoftBank (SFTBY+3.05%), which is working with OpenAI on the $500 billion Stargate plan alongside Oracle (ORCL+2.38%) and other partners.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, reports that the investment will be made in two parts, with $10 billion of immediate funding and $30 billion coming by the end of 2025. SoftBank accounts for 75% of that cash, while Microsoft (MSFT+0.24%), Thrive Capital, Coatue, and Altimeter, along with other investors, will provide the remainder.
In a statement, OpenAI said the funding will allow it to “push the frontiers of AI research even further, scale our compute infrastructure, and deliver increasingly powerful tools” for users of its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot. OpenAI kicked off the AI boom in late 2022 when it debuted ChatGPT, which the company says now draws 500 million users each week, up from 400 million in February.
That $300 billion valuation makes OpenAI one of the most valuable companies in the world. It’s worth more than public giants across most industries, including Chevron (CVX-0.27%) ($294 billion), Samsung ($263 billion), Salesforce (CRM+0.20%) ($257 billion), McDonald’s ($223 billion), and PepsiCo (PEP+1.84%)($205 billion). Its value is almost three times that of Starbucks (SBUX-0.06%) ($111 billion) or Lockheed Martin (LMT+0.09%) ($104 billion).
OpenAI is the third-most valuable private firm in the world. ByteDance, the company behind the social media platform TikTok, reportedly planned to buy employee stock at a valuation of $312 billion last month. The most valuable private firm is still Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which was valued at $350 billion in December.
OpenAI was started in 2015 as a nonprofit, backed by the likes of Musk and others. After Musk left a few years later, the company adopted a “capped profit” structure, which allowed it to raise the funds needed to build out its AI technology through a for-profit arm.
Late last year, OpenAI revealed a plan to restructure its operations and shift control from the nonprofit to OpenAI’s investors as a for-profit company. At the time, OpenAI said it needed to raise “more capital than we’d imagined.’
OpenAI’s plans face a few hurdles, including a lawsuit from Musk, who wants to stop the company from becoming a for-profit. In February, Altman rejected a bid from Musk and other investors that reportedly offered $97.4 billion to take control of the nonprofit.
“no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” was how Altman responded in a social media spat with Musk. Twitter, rebranded as X after Musk purchased it, was just acquired by the billionaire’s own xAI startup, an OpenAI rival. That deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, Musk said