On Tuesday, September 26, the media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that OpenAI is negotiating with investors for a potential share sale, and the company may obtain a valuation of US$80 billion to US$90 billion, which will be approximately three times the valuation of up to US$29 billion in the spring of 2023.If a deal is reached, OpenAI employees and investors will be able to sell their current shares without the company having to issue new shares to obtain new capital.
Currently, Microsoft holds 49% of OpenAI shares. The company expects to hit $1 billion in revenue this year and generate billions more in 2024. Membership fees for the powerful ChatGPT and licensing fees for the large language model behind the bot are the company's main sources of revenue.
OpenAI has begun pitching investors on the deal, but the terms and final valuation could change, people familiar with the matter said.
A valuation of $80 billion or more would make OpenAI one of the world's most valuable startups, behind Musk's SpaceX and ByteDance.
In April this year, OpenAI completed a new round of financing of US$10.3 billion, with a valuation reaching US$27 billion-29 billion. Venture capital companies including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, K2Global and FoundersFund participated in this round of financing for OpenAI.
Outside investors now own more than 30% of OpenAI. According to PitchBook data, Peter Thiel, the godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital, is one of the early investors of OpenAI, but this is also the first time that Thiel’s venture capital company FoundersFund has invested in OpenAI; K2Global, a venture capital company founded by Singaporean venture capitalist Ozi Amanat, and Thrive are both the first investments in OpenAI. According to PitchBook data, Sequoia Capital, A16Z and Tiger Global were early investors in OpenAI, but later sold their shares in the company. The latest investment allowed them to become shareholders of OpenAI again.