Where's the beef?


On Wednesday, the creator of ChatGPT said in a blog post that it raised $6.6 billion in new funding at a whopping valuation of $157 billion to “accelerate progress toward its mission.” 

OpenAI did not specify its investors, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the round was led by venture-capital firm Thrive Capital, current investors such as Microsoft Corp. MSFT and new investors including Softbank Group Corp. 9984 and chip giant Nvidia Corp. NVDA.

At that valuation, OpenAI is worth more than 87% of the S&P 500 SPX companies. 

It makes OpenAI among the highest-valued private companies in the world, along with SpaceX, which is currently valued at $201 billion, and TikTok. At the start of last year, according to Forge Global’s secondary-market trading data, OpenAI was valued at $29 billion. Before this round, OpenAI was valued at $110 billion, according to Forge. 

Investing in OpenAI is basically an investment in the future, said Duncan Davidson, a general partner at Bullpen Capital. 

“I think the class of investors does not really care, since this isn’t a financial deal but a huge bet on the future,” he [Davidson] said. “Plus, many of them (sovereign wealth funds) would like to build AI capability in their regions and monetize that way.”


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