#OpenAI Raises $6.6B in Massive Funding Round

OpenAI has closed a massive $6.6 billion funding round that values the generative artificial intelligence giant at $157 billion.

The company announced the news in a blog post Wednesday, writing that “the new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.”

The round was led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital, and also includes Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Fidelity and other high-profile investors.

OpenAI, of course, is arguably the most significant AI company on the planet (technically, of course, it is a non-profit). Its ChatGPT product changed the conversation around generative AI, and its Dall-E image generation software demonstrated the potential for that tech. It is also wading into the AI-generated video world with its Sora product, announced earlier this year.

The startup, led by CEO Sam Altman, has in recent months cut a flurry of deals with publishers in preparation for its SearchGPT product, with Time, Condé Nast, and News Corp. among those taking a check.

OpenAI also announced a deal with Apple to bring ChatGPT to its Siri voice assistant in new iPhones.

However, OpenAI, like other AI firms, is in murky legal water, facing lawsuits from authors and others who argue that the training data used to form its models was illicitly or inappropriately obtained, and that the creators of the data should be compensated.