Three giants competing for $6.5 billion? OpenAI's new financing may help its valuation reach $150 billion

Author: Li Dan

Source: Hard AI

OpenAI's "fund-raising" ability is off the charts and has added new evidence. Recent news shows that a new round of financing that attracted three American technology giants may help boost OpenAI's valuation to $150 billion.

On Wednesday, September 11th, Eastern Time, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that OpenAI is in talks to raise $6.5 billion from investors at a company valuation of $150 billion. At the same time, OpenAI is also negotiating to borrow $5 billion from banks in the form of revolving loans. Sources said that during the discussions, the specific amount of financing may change.

OpenAI has not commented on the above news about the new financing. If the news is true, reaching a valuation of $150 billion this month would mean that its valuation has increased by nearly 88% in just over half a year. This is because a report by The New York Times in February this year stated that after completing transactions including venture capital companies and employee cash-outs, OpenAI's valuation doubled in less than 10 months to reach $80 billion.

The Bloomberg report on Wednesday pointed out that the $150 billion valuation does not include the aforementioned $6.5 billion in new financing, which is expected to be led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital, with Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia all participating.

This is consistent with some media reports at the end of last month. At that time, there were reports that OpenAI was seeking a new round of financing in the tens of billions of dollars, with Thrive Capital leading with an investment of about $1 billion, Microsoft participating, and the new financing would push OpenAI's valuation to over $100 billion. There were also reports that Apple was negotiating to join OpenAI's new round of financing, and Nvidia had already discussed joining this round of financing. If discussions progress, the three companies with the highest market capitalization in the world will all invest in OpenAI, highlighting the market's high expectations for its technological potential.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has referred to it as "the most capital-intensive startup in Silicon Valley history," and this new financing round once again demonstrates Altman's strong fundraising ability. If OpenAI's valuation surpasses $100 billion, among private startups, its valuation would only be surpassed by a few companies such as ByteDance and SpaceX. Last month, Wall Street News mentioned that some investors believe a $100 billion valuation is still conservative, and even expect OpenAI's valuation to reach $125 billion. The new valuation reported this Wednesday exceeds this already surprising valuation level.

Regarding the news of OpenAI's new valuation on Wednesday, some netizens posted a GIF on social media X with the caption "Let me in," expressing investors' eagerness to participate in the financing

Some netizens are surprised, is OpenAI's valuation rising too fast? Wasn't it said last week that the valuation was $100 billion?

Some netizens said, why not go for a $1.5 trillion valuation, isn't OpenAI undervaluing itself? At the same time, the netizen mentioned that in less than a year, Musk's xAI chatbot Grok is 100 times better than OpenAI, so how much is X worth?

Some comments suggest, imagine if OpenAI really mastered Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), how high would its valuation be.