Openai said on Monday that she had completed an agreement of funds of $ 40 billion, which almost doubled the company’s award almost six months ago.
The new round of raising funds, led by the Japanese conglomerate softbank, appreciates Openai to $ 300 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world, along with the Rocket Company SpaceX and Soundance, the manufacturer of Tiktoku.
Openai started the boom of artificial intelligence at the end of 2022 by publishing his online chatbot, Chatgpt. His latest investment round suggests that the excitement of the technical industry remains strong, even with fear of efficiency and safety, rapidly improving technology.
“This investment helps us push the border and make AI more useful in everyday life,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, in his statement by The New York Times.
The company also said that 500 million people actively use Chatgpt every week – compared to 400 million at the end of February – and that 20 million people pay for the use of more advanced chatbot versions.
The new investment will be made in two parts, according to a person who is familiar with an agreement that spoken of the state of anonymity. The initial $ 10 billion arrives immediately, with another $ 30 billion to arrive by the end of the year, the person said.
The SoftBank Group provides 75 percent of the total, the rest comes from other investors, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, Coate and Altimeter, the person said. Microsoft and Thrive Capital led the previous investment rounds in Openi.
Mr. Altman helped create Openi as a non -profit organization in 2015 together with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and several others. In 2018, after Mr Musk left the organization after the Battle of Control, Mr. Altman joined OpenAi to a profitable company to get billions of dollars needed to build artificial intelligence technologies.
However, the non -profit organization has retained control of the company. Last year, Mr. Altman and his company began to work on the plan to move control of the non -profit organization to investors Openi as a profitable company.
Soon after, Mr Musk sued Openi and Mr. Altman and claimed that they had violated the company’s founding contract by submitting commercial interests in front of the public estate.
Openai plans to move control of the company to the public advantage of Corporation or PBC, which is a profitable corporation designed to create public and social good. If this shift is not completed by the end of the year, SoftBank will have the opportunity to reduce its total contribution to $ 20 billion, the person who is familiar with the latest investment agreement said.
This year, Mr. Musk and the Consortium of Investors escalated their long -term sport with Mr. Altman by offering to buy for more than $ 97 billion the assets of the non -profit organization that control Openai. The Board of Directors rejected the Openai offer.
However, the offer could still complicate the efforts of Mr. Altman to depart the company from the non -profit board and increase the billions of dollars that Oncei needs to build new technologies.
(The Times sued Openi and his partner, Microsoft, who demanded a copyright infringement for the content of news related to AI. Both companies denied claims.)
