AI Hardware

OpenAI raises $6.6B and is now valued at $157B

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has closed the largest VC round of all time.

By Priya Khosla October 3, 2024

OpenAI announced that it raised $6.6 billion in a funding round and is now valued at $157 billion post-money. Led by previous investor Thrive Capital, the new cash brings OpenAI’s total raised to $17.9 billion.

Thrive invested around $1.3 billion, per The New York Times, with an exclusive option to invest up to $1 billion more at the same valuation (through 2025). Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, and MGX also participated in the fundraising. Microsoft reportedly invested a little less than $1 billion, while Nvidia pledged $100 million and SoftBank put in $500 million, reports The Wall Street Journal.

“The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We’re grateful to our investors for their trust in us, and we look forward to working with our partners, developers, and the broader community to shape an AI-powered ecosystem and future that benefits everyone.”

According to The Information, OpenAI has spent roughly $7 billion on model training and $1.5 billion on staffing. (OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that one of the company’s older leading models, GPT-4, cost more than $100 million to train.) And at one point in time, ChatGPT alone was said to be costing OpenAI $700,000 a day to run.

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