The numbers are impressive: the artificial intelligence (AI) start-up OpenAI announced, on Wednesday, October 2, that it had completed a fundraising of 6.6 billion dollars (6 billion euros), which valued at 157 billion dollars.
The creator of the ChatGPT conversational robot thus completes the largest round of venture capital investment, exceeding the $6 billion raised by xAi, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, according to the American information site axios. And the company led by Sam Altman is approaching the record valuation for an unlisted company, being surpassed only by the parent company of the Chinese social network TikTok, ByteDance, and by Elon Musk’s space company, SpaceX, according to the Financial times. The financing round includes the Thrive Capital fund, as well as Microsoft, Nvidia, Softbank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, Tiger Global and MGX, notes axios.
But paradoxically, despite the superlatives, this fundraising also reflects the challenges OpenAI faces. It means that OpenAI still needs funding, despite the $10 billion invested by Microsoft in early 2023 ($13 billion total since 2019). “It will allow us to consolidate our leadership in cutting-edge AI research, increase our computing capacity and create new tools to help people solve difficult problems”the company justifies in its press release.
In fact, training and operating large AI models is very expensive, particularly in computational terms. According The information, OpenAI’s revenue would have doubled in a year and would have exceeded $3 billion annually, but the company would have a deficit of $5 billion, due in particular to the $4 billion in computer calculations paid to its partner Microsoft. . The company would forecast $11 billion in revenue in 2025, according to the Financial times. And ChatGPT would now have 250 million weekly users, OpenAI wrote on Wednesday, October 2 to reassure itself.
Debate on nonprofit structure
To increase its revenue, OpenAI is also in the process of continuing its transformation into a more traditional commercial company. Many articles announce the transition to a for-profit structure: this would reportedly be planned within two years in fundraising contracts. axios. This structure was created in 2019, but remains controlled by a non-profit structure, born from the original project of 2015. The leaders of the latter had dismissed, at the end of 2023, Sam Altman, whose policy was considered too short. -theristic and focused on the rapid launch of commercial products, and too solitary management.
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