According to The New York Times, OpenAI, a leader in the field of artificial intelligence, recently completed a major transaction that allowed its employees to sell their company shares. This transaction has raised OpenAI’s valuation to $86 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in the world.
The transaction was originally planned to take place last year, but was delayed due to the decision to replace CEO Sam Altman. Altman was later rehired, and the company underwent a board restructuring. The transaction, led by the investment team at Thrive Capital, was expected to purchase up to $1 billion or more worth of stocks from employees and other investors.
Prior to the Altman incident, a group of investors, including Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, who already held shares in OpenAI, were expected to participate in this upcoming acquisition but were not reported on.
It is worth mentioning that OpenAI completed a financing round in April last year, which also allowed employees to sell their stocks to investors. This transaction raised a total of $495 million for OpenAI, 65% more than the previously reported $300 million. The investors valued the company at $27 billion to $29 billion, which means that its valuation has increased by 175% in less than a year.
In addition, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI is exploring the possibility of raising new funds, which could further increase the company’s valuation to over $100 billion. Altman is actively seeking to raise billions of dollars in funding to increase the supply of cutting-edge computer chips worldwide. Altman has already negotiated with Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, TSMC, and representatives of other manufacturers such as the United Arab Emirates. They plan to build more than 10 advanced chip manufacturing plants within a few years and will fully entrust TSMC to manage and utilize advanced processes to produce GPU and other semiconductor chips to address the future chip shortage.
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