OpenAI Secures $6.6 Billion in Fundraising, Valuation Hits $157 Billion

OpenAI has recently announced that it received $6.6 billion in funding from investors. This funding raised OpenAI's valuation to $157 billion. Investors remain confident in OpenAI despite the recent leadership and internal changes.

Some of the other prominent investors participating in this fresh round include top corporates Microsoft and Nvidia—the leader in AI chips and Japanese investment giant SoftBank. Contrary to reports that have surfaced over recent days, Apple was not participating in the round of funding. New capital comes at a time when the company is already undergoing organizational changes due to Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati's exit, long-time and influential figure at OpenAI.

Despite this, investors remain optimistic, and much of this is being driven by sound revenue projection from OpenAI. According to sources quoted by Reuters, CEO Sam Altman has projected $3.7 billion in revenues for this year, tripling the figure to over $10 billion by 2025. More restructuring is on cards, and this time round, Mr Altman is also expected to have more equity in the company.

As per some reports, the funding round had seen strategic provisions in place to keep OpenAI ahead of the curve. The investors were not allowed to invest in competing companies during the period, a source quoted under the terms of the deal specified to end on the five such firms that the investor could not invest in. Some of the companies on the forbidden list include Amazon-backed Anthropic and besides xAI—Elon Musk's company. There has been no comment on these claims by the companies mentioned or OpenAI.

In mid-September, OpenAI introduced the 'o1' model with human-level reasoning capabilities. The company told Bloomberg it plans to use the funding to advance AI research and expand its computing capacity further.

In mid-September, OpenAI introduced a new version of its large language model called 'o1,' designed to achieve human-level reasoning capabilities. Meanwhile, Google is developing its own AI reasoning model to compete with OpenAI in creating more advanced problem-solving software.

The company is nearing a funding milestone in order to further boosting its position in artificial intelligence and large language models, despite still leading the charge.