OpenAi said on Monday that it had completed a fundraising deal of $ 40 billion that doubles the appreciation of the high -profile company almost six months ago.
The new fundraising round, led by the Japanese conglomerate Softbank, appreciates $ 300 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world, together with the Rocket Company SpaceX and Bytedance, the maker of Tiktok.
At the end of 2022, OpenAi started the artificial intelligence tree with the release of its online chatbot, chatgpt. The latest investment round indicates that the excitement of the technical industry about AI remains strong, even in the midst of concern about the effectiveness and safety of the rapidly improving technology.
“This investment helps us to shift the border and make AI more useful in daily life,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAi, in a statement to the New York Times.
The company also said that 500 million people actively use chatgpt every week – an increase of 400 million at the end of February – and that 20 million people pay to use more advanced versions of the chatbot.
The new investment will be made in two parts, according to a person who is familiar with the deal who spoke about the condition of anonymity. A first $ 10 billion will arrive immediately, with another $ 30 billion coming towards the end of the year, the person said.
Softbank Group supplies 75 percent of the total, where the rest comes from other investors, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, Coatue and Altimeter, the person said. Microsoft and Thrive Capital led earlier investment rounds in OpenAI.
Mr Altman helped to create OpenAi as a non -profit in 2015, together with Tesla's Chief Executive, Elon Musk, and various others. In 2018, after Mr. Musk had left the organization after a battle for control, Mr Altman OpenAi brought a company with a profit, so that he could collect the billions of dollars needed to build artificial intelligence technologies.
But the non -profit organization retained control of the company. Last year, Mr Altman and his company started working on a plan to move control over the company from the non-profit organization to the investors of OpenAi as a for-profit company.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Musk OpenAi and Mr. Altman complained and claimed that they had violated the company's founding contract by putting commercial interests above the public interest.
OpenAI is planning to move control over the company to a company in the public interest, or PBC, a company with a profit motive that is designed to create public and socially good. If this shift is not completed by the end of the year, Softbank will have the option to reduce its total contribution to $ 20 billion, a person who is familiar with the last investment agreement said.
Mr. Musk and a consortium of investors escalated this year his long -standing feud with Mr. Altman by offering to the assets of the non -profit organization that OpenAI checks for more than $ 97 billion. The Board of Directors of OpenAi rejected the bid.
But the bid can still make Mr Altman's efforts to separate the company from the non -profit organization, and the billions of dollars that OpenAi need need new technologies.
(The Times has sued OpenAi and his partner, Microsoft, and claims infringement of the copyright of news content with regard to AI systems. The two companies have denied the claims of the suit.)
