Report: OpenAI Seeking $150 Billion Valuation in Funding Round

OpenAI reportedly aims to raise $6.5 billion from investors at a valuation of $150 billion.

The firm also is seeking to raise $5 billion in debt from banks via a revolving credit facility, Bloomberg reported  Wednesday (Sept. 11), citing unnamed sources.

The discussions are ongoing, and the terms could change, according to the report.

OpenAI did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The financing will be used to cover the company’s computing power needs and other operating expenses, per the report.

It was reported Aug. 28 that OpenAI aimed to raise “several billion dollars” in a funding round that would result in a valuation above $100 billion. The firm was valued at $86 billion when employees sold shares in late 2023.

The latest funding round comes at a time when there is fierce competition in the artificial intelligence space and when staying on the cutting edge of AI will require billions of dollars in spending. OpenAI spent more than $100 billion to build its GPT-4 AI model and is expected to spend more on the one it is developing now.

The funding round reportedly is being led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital and is expected to include participation from Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019. Apple and Nvidia are reportedly in talks to invest in the company as well.

OpenAI became the first official partner for Apple Intelligence in June, while Nvidia supplies chips and other infrastructure for AI tools like those developed by OpenAI.

In other AI funding moves, a three-month-old artificial intelligence startup co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever secured $1 billion in a funding round.

The startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), was launched in June by Sutskever along with Daniel Gross, a former Y Combinator partner who previously led AI efforts at Apple, and Daniel Levy, a former colleague of Sutskever’s at OpenAI. SSI is focusing on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) with an emphasis on safety.

AI investments present a lot of opportunities, Carlos Simonsen, co-founder and managing partner of Brazilian venture capital firm Upload Ventures told Bloomberg News in an interview posted Wednesday.

“There are a lot of opportunities in AI as a productivity facilitator in several processes in sectors such as banking and health care, but agritechs and credit FinTechs have a lot of risk,” Simonsen said.