Openii said Monday that he had completed a fundraising agreement of $ 40 billion that doubles almost the evaluation of the high -profile company only six months ago.
The new fundraising round, led by the Japanese conglomerate Softbank, open values at $ 300 billion, making it one of the most precious private companies in the world, together with the Spacex and Bytedance missile company, the manufacturer of Tiktok.
Openii began the boom of artificial intelligence at the end of 2022 with the release of his online chatbot, chatgpt. His latest investment round indicates that the excitement of the technological sector for the IA remains strong, even among the concerns for the effectiveness and safety of rapid improvement technology.
“This investment helps us to push the border and make the IA more useful in everyday life,” said Sam Altman, CEO of Openi, in a statement to 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 are paying to use more advanced versions of the chatbot.
The new investment will be made in two parties, according to a person who is familiar with the agreement that spoke on condition of anonymity. They will immediately take a first billion dollars, with other $ 30 billion arriving by the end of the year, said the person.
SoftBank Group provides 75 percent of the total, with the rest from other investors, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, Coatue and Altimeter, said the person. Microsoft and Thrive Capital led previous investment rounds in Openni.
Altman contributed to creating Openi as a non -profit organization in 2015, together with the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk and many others. In 2018, after Musk left the organization after a battle for control, Altman attacked Openai to a profit for profit so that he could collect the billions of dollars needed to build artificial intelligence technologies.
But non -profit has maintained control of the company. Last year, Altman and his company began working on a plan to move the company control from non -profit to Openi investors as a non -profit company.
Shortly thereafter, Musk sued Openai and Altman, claiming to have violated the founding contract of the company by putting commercial interests in front of the public good.
Openi plans to move control of the company to a company for public benefits or PBC, which is a profit for profit designed to create public and social good. If this round is not completed by the end of the year, SoftBank will have the opportunity to reduce his total contribution to $ 20 billion, said a person who is familiar with the latest investment agreement.
Musk and a consortium of investors have intensified his longtime feud with Mr. Altman this year offering to buy the activities of the non -profit that controls Openi for over $ 97 billion. The Board of Directors of Openi rejected the offer.
But the offer could still complicate the efforts of Mr. Altman to separate the company from the non -profit council and collect the billions of dollars that Openi needs to build new technologies.
(The Times sued Openi and his partner, Microsoft, supporting the violation of the copyright of news related to artificial intelligence systems. The two companies denied the statements of the cause.)