OpenAI is reportedly close to finalizing $100 billion funding round
It's the largest raise in history, but it's still just a drop in the bucket for what the ChatGPT maker is spending these days
Bloomberg
Less than a year after it closed the largest fundraising round by a private tech company in history, OpenAI is closing in on a new record. Bloomberg reports the AI giant is close to finalizing a round that is expected to top $100 billion. That's expected to boost the company's valuation to more than $850 billion.
The round, which has been rumored for months, has not yet closed, but backers are expected to finalize their allocations by the end of the month. Among the companies expected to put money into OpenAI are Amazon $AMZN (which could invest as much as $50 billion), SoftBank (expected to invest $30 billion), Nvidia $NVDA ($20 billion) and Microsoft $MSFT. Venture capital firms would decide their investments following the corporate commitments.
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While $100 billion more than doubles the record $40 billion OpenAI raised last March, the company is continuing to spend trillions of dollars in infrastructure – and it has massive financial commitments to companies like Nvidia and Oracle $ORCL.
While market watchers are starting to wonder when these investments will begin to turn a profit, OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman told CNBC that's not the company's focus at present.
“We are growing at an extremely fast rate right now,” he said. “I think as long as we can have reasonable unit economics, we should focus on continuing to grow faster and faster, and we’ll get profitable when we think it makes sense.”
All of this comes as OpenAI is barreling toward an IPO, perhaps as early as later this year. The company and rival Anthropic are reportedly in a horserace to be the first major AI company to go public.