Microsoft-backed OpenAI has completed a deal valuing the artificial intelligence company at $80 billion or more. According to reports, the company will sell its existing shares through a tender offer led by venture firm Thrive Capital. Employees will be able to convert their shares into cash instead of raising money for the company through a traditional financing round.
The AI firm had reached a similar deal early last year. The report stated that venture capital firms Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global agreed to buy OpenAI shares through a tender offer, valuing the company at approximately $29 billion. OpenAI has attracted attention with several major financing rounds, including Microsoft’s investment of $10 billion in January 2023. The company also provided funding to OpenAI in 2019 and 2021.
The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022 sparked excitement in the field of artificial intelligence. It also encouraged companies to explore ways to leverage the power of technology. AI has been integrated into a range of products, including Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and Microsoft continues to advance its own developments.
On Thursday, OpenAI announced the launch of Sora, a tool that creates videos from text commands. The day before, it highlighted experiments to add deeper memory to ChatGPT, allowing the tool to remember user conversations more effectively.
Reports also indicate that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is negotiating to buy a chip manufacturer or increase access to the costly AI chips that the company’s tools rely on. The recent deal is the largest support the company has received following a brief period of turmoil at the end of 2023, when Altman was fired by the company’s board of directors and then rehired after employee backlash.
The development could particularly affect the price of Worldcoin. Since the deal has raised the company’s value to $80 billion, Worldcoin, launched by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is expected to respond positively to this development. Indeed, the recent journey of WLD’s price from $2.50 to $4.96 may reflect the significance of this development.
