OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it has completed a new round of financing of 6.6 billion dollars, bringing the artificial intelligence company's market cap to 157 billion dollars, making it the largest investment round in history.

If it goes public with a valuation of $157 billion, OpenAI's market cap will surpass top investment bank Goldman Sachs and the world's largest mobile travel company uber technologies. As of press time, Goldman Sachs has a total market cap of $155.4 billion, while uber technologies has $154.3 billion.

According to Bloomberg News, this round of financing was led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital led by Josh Kushner, with participation from other global investors, including $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$Please use your Futubull account to access the feature.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$Please use your Futubull account to access the feature.$SoftBank Group (9984.JP)$ Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Coatue Management, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and the new technology investment company MGX based in Abu Dhabi. Among them, Microsoft invested approximately $0.75 billion in the latest round of financing for OpenAI, and 'Queen of Wood' Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management also invested at least $0.25 billion.

Valuation doubled in a year, entering the top three globally.

OpenAI told investors that the company is still actively pursuing the goal of general artificial intelligence (AGI), which is to develop AI systems that surpass human intelligence, while accelerating commercialization and striving for profitability. Analysts believe that after this round of investment, OpenAI is expected to continue strengthening its efforts to build a world-leading generative AI technology. The company's statement reads:

"This new funding will allow us to double our focus on cutting-edge artificial intelligence research, increase computing power, and continue to build tools that help people solve problems. We appreciate investors' trust in us and look forward to working together with our partners, developers, and the wider community to build an AI-driven ecosystem and future that benefits everyone."

Although Apple had previously negotiated to participate in this round of financing with OpenAI, it ultimately did not participate. According to media reports, Apple has a partnership with OpenAI, integrating ChatGPT into its devices and providing services through its Siri voice assistant. As part of this collaboration, Apple discussed obtaining observer seats on the OpenAI board of directors, but these plans were eventually shelved, according to sources familiar with the matter.

This transaction also doubled OpenAI's valuation in less than a year, making it one of the top three startups globally, alongside Musk's SpaceX and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. According to sources familiar with the matter, the scale of this round of investment reflects the tech industry's confidence in the potential of artificial intelligence and the strong demand for high-cost research to drive its development.

This large-scale financing round was completed after a turbulent year for OpenAI. In November last year, the company's board of directors dismissed but then quickly rehired its CEO, Sam Altman. Over the following months, the company restructured its board, recruited hundreds of new employees, but also lost several key leaders, including Ilya Sutskever and Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati.

This financing round is in the form of convertible notes and is contingent on the company successfully completing structural changes to become a for-profit entity no longer controlled by a non-profit board of directors, while also removing the cap on investor returns. Analysts believe that this transition will appease the company's supporters but may bring legal obstacles. As part of the transition, OpenAI has discussed granting company shares to Ultraman, with a value potentially exceeding $10 billion, although the OpenAI board has stated that specific numbers have not been discussed. Sources also revealed to the media that after this round of funding, OpenAI will allow its employees to sell shares.

Sources also informed the media that investors have negotiated certain terms, and if these changes are not implemented within two years, they will have the right to withdraw capital or renegotiate valuations.

OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT, launched in 2022, currently has 0.25 billion weekly active users. Its premium service, ChatGPT Plus, has 11 million subscribing users, while its commercial services cater to 1 million users. The company's revenue for this year is expected to reach $3.6 billion, but with losses exceeding $5 billion. Next year, revenue is projected to significantly increase to $11.6 billion.

Requesting investors not to support competitors.

In recent years, a new wave of companies has emerged to compete with OpenAI, including some founded by former OpenAI employees such as Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence. OpenAI also faces fierce competition from resource-rich tech giants like Google and Amazon, who are developing their own AI models.

xAI, backed by Musk, raised over $6 billion earlier this year, but with a valuation much lower than OpenAI's ($24 billion post-funding valuation). OpenAI's primary competitor, Anthropic, has raised less than half of OpenAI's total funding ($9.7 billion), while well-known AI companies Cohere and Mistral have reserves hovering around $1 billion.

According to the Financial Times report on Wednesday, OpenAI is urging investors not to support Musk's xAI and competitors like Anthropic, aiming to maintain its leading position in the generative AI field. The report quotes insiders saying that OpenAI hopes to reach exclusive agreements with investors to prevent competitors from gaining strategic cooperation opportunities and capital support.

Analysts believe that OpenAI's move may intensify tensions with competitors, especially Musk, who is suing OpenAI. Musk co-founded and funded OpenAI with others in 2015 but left three years later. In August, Musk filed a lawsuit alleging that the company had abandoned its initial non-profit mission of serving the interests of humanity and described OpenAI's commercial partnership with Microsoft as "Shakespearean deception," seeking to invalidate Microsoft's agreement.

Venture capital firms typically have access to sensitive information about their portfolio companies, and a close relationship with one company may make it difficult or inappropriate to simultaneously support competitors. However, according to venture capitalists, requests for exclusive investments are not common. Many leading companies make multiple investments in certain areas, for example Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, which have supported OpenAI and also invested in Musk's xAI.

Editor/Somer