OpenAI is now one of the wealthiest private companies on Earth after successfully raising $6.6 billion in its latest funding round on a valuation of $157 billion.
“Every week, over 250 million people around the world use ChatGPT to enhance their work, creativity, and learning,” the company wrote in its announcement post. “The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.”
Existing backers such as Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Microsoft were joined by newcomers SoftBank and Nvidia. Apple, which had previously been in talks to invest, backed out earlier this week.
The funding news comes as OpenAI considers restructuring its core business from a nonprofit to a for-profit model in an effort to make itself more attractive to investors. “We remain focused on building AI that benefits everyone, and we’re working with our board to ensure that we’re best positioned to succeed in our mission. The nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Reuters at the time.
The investment round also comes as OpenAI struggles to retain top talent. Since last November, when OpenAI’s nonprofit board of directors unsuccessfully attempted to oust CEO Sam Altman from the company, a steady stream of researchers, founders and C-suite executives have resigned. Researchers Jan Leike and Ilya Sutskever both left in May, in protest of the company’s disregard of safety guidelines in favor of hawking “shiny products.” Chief technology officer Mira Murati tendered her resignation in late September, with research officer Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, senior research executive, quickly following suit.
According to a report from Reuters, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees that the company will offer to buy back their shares in the company at the new valuation. Some employees were allowed to cash out their shares earlier this year at OpenAI’s previous valuation of $86 billion. As part of the proposed restructuring plan, Altman could receive as much as $150 billion in equity, making him one of the richest people on the planet.
