OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is reportedly seeking a total valuation of $100 billion (approximately 90 billion euros) in a new funding round, according to various media sources. So far, the AI company has primarily received funding from the software giant Microsoft, which is said to have invested over $10 billion.
The current funding round is reportedly being led by Thrive Capital, which plans to contribute $1 billion, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing informed sources. Microsoft is also expected to invest again. However, the conditions of the deal may still change, as noted by Bloomberg in their report.
A Valuation Comparable to Facebook’s Pre-IPO Era
The overall valuation in such funding rounds is determined by the stake that investors acquire in the company for their money. Similarly, Facebook was valued in a comparable range before its initial public offering in 2012. However, some other startups that reached billion-dollar valuations later struggled to maintain them.
ChatGPT is the chatbot that sparked a wave of interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) over a year ago. These AI programs are trained on vast amounts of information and can generate human-like text, write software code, and summarize information. The underlying principle is that the AI predicts each word in a sentence, determining how it should continue.
The Billion-Dollar AI Race
In recent years, Silicon Valley has witnessed a race in AI development. Training AI software requires massive computer infrastructure, which can quickly consume billions of dollars. Such financial resources are typically available to tech giants.
Companies like Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, are heavily investing in their own AI models. At the same time, these major players are also funding startups. For instance, Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s strongest competitors with its chatbot Claude, has secured billions in funding from Google and Amazon, among others.