Coinspeaker
ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Reportedly Raising Funds at Valuation of $80B to $90B
Tech startup OpenAI is reportedly planning a share sale that could potentially push the company’s valuation from $29 billion to somewhere between $80 billion and $90 billion. This is according to a Wall Street Journal report citing sources familiar with the matter. The report added that the ChatGPT creator would allow employees to sell their existing shares instead of issuing new ones.
The Microsoft-backed startup’s last raise was in April when OpenAI received a little over $300 million in funding at a valuation of $29 billion. It was backed by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and K2 Global among others. This came after a huge investment from Microsoft – which owns 49% of OpenAI – in January. The investment is believed to have been about $10 billion and was earmarked for AI model training and the development of new products. Microsoft has been incorporating OpenAI’s technology into its Bing search engine.
If successful, the share sale would be the second major secondary share sale by the fast-growing startup. It would also make the privately held OpenAI one of the highest valued startups, out-ranking companies like Shein and Canva to join the company of SpaceX and TikTok owner ByteDance.
The company is also projected to reach $1 billion in revenue over this year from the premium version of ChatGPT and from giving business access to its AI technology including GPT-3.
The company’s popular generative artificial intelligence assistant ChatGPT, launched in November last year, has been one of the biggest and most successful technological advancements in recent years. The chatbot takes short, simple text-based prompts and generates essays, emails, recipes, and summaries. Within a week of its launch, ChatGPT had one million users who could use it for free while it was in its “research preview” phase.
While a free version is available, the startup offers a premium version, ChatGPT+ for $20 per month. ChatGPT+ users are entitled to perks such as priority access to new features, and faster response time and are even able to use the chatbot during peak times. The company continues to explore making the service more interactive. Earlier this week, it was reported that soon, users will be able to have a voice conversation with the chatbot.
ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Reportedly Raising Funds at Valuation of $80B to $90B
