OpenAI, the widely acclaimed artificial intelligence development firm, has closed a massive funding round of over $10.3 billion, TechCrunch has learned. Ventures such as Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital and K2 Global are investing a cumulative of $300 million at a valuation of $27 billion – $29 billion. This funding round was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal in January.
Microsoft is also investing in OpenAI at a whopping amount of $10 billion, although the exact purpose of the investment remains unclear. This brings the total outside investor ownership of OpenAI to more than 30%. Many of the investors such as Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund had already invested in OpenAI in the past, but the latest developments bring them back into the fold.
OpenAI has gained popularity for its proprietary technology called Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) and its consumer-facing offering, ChatGPT. ChatGPT allows users to ask natural questions and gain personalized answers. This product saw more than 1 billion visits to its website in February, as per SimilarWeb.
OpenAI has received criticism for its data-use and its potential to mislead, exploit and manipulate users. However, the startup continues to innovate and recently introduced a paid version called ChatGPT Plus and also launched multimodal GPT-4 to enhance the user experience.
In addition to the growing popularity of its products, OpenAI has an extensive network of technical teams and the startup has been in development for the past seven years. CEO Sam Altman recently stated that the startup has focused on “sweating every detail for a long time”, which is why its products have become so successful.
The company behind OpenAI consists of three founders from top universities such as Stanford and Harvard. The founders Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Greg Brockman are highly invested in the success of the company due to their long commitment and dedication to the startup. Altman is the current CEO, Musk serves as the Chairman of OpenAI, and Greg Brockman is the Chief Technology Officer.
