OpenAI allegedly valued at $150 billion, in talks to raise $6.5 billion

Founded in the opening weeks of 2015's winter, OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco and has roughly 1,700 employees. Although its list of products is impressive, including ChatGPT, DALL·E, and Sora, it seems to be bleeding money for now ($-540 million net income for 2022). However, it raised $1 billion earlier this year with a $86 billion valuation, and now it seems to be in talks for bringing in $6.5 billion, based on a value of no less than $150 billion.

According to anonymous insiders familiar with OpenAI's inner workings, the company is seeking the aforementioned amount from investors, but at the same time is trying to raise $5 billion in debt from banks as a revolving credit facility. OpenAI's officials decline to comment for now, and even the insiders who spoke to Bloomberg highlighted the fact that, since the discussions are still ongoing, the figures might change.

In a previous report, Thrive Capital was mentioned as the leading force in this funding round. However, they declined to say anything regarding this matter ever since. For now, OpenAI's largest investor remains Microsoft Corp., which is also expected to participate in the new funding round. Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. are allegedly in talks with OpenAI to join the upcoming funding round as well.

The goal of the funds is obvious, and a memo to employees sent last month by OpenAI's CFO, Sarah Friar, confirmed that the money will be used to acquire computing power and for various other operational expenses. She also mentioned that employees will be allowed to sell some of their shares later this year in a tender offer.

Developers with an eye on the AI market might want to check out Martin Yanev's Building AI Applications with OpenAI APIs: Leverage ChatGPT, Whisper, and DALL-E APIs to build 10 innovative AI projects, which will be published on October 4th and can be pre-ordered at $31.99 in Kindle format or $37.99 in paperback version (5% less than the $39.99 list price).

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