WORLDTECHOpenAI lands an $11 billion funding round, but has to court dentists for more capital
What happened
OpenAI has secured $11 billion in fresh capital, the first tranche of a round that values the company at $1.25 trillion. That OpenAI is already turning to wealthy private investors hints at a saturating AI capital market and growing investor caution. OpenAI is an artificial intelligence company based in San Francisco.
The money was wired on Friday, Bloomberg reports. The full round could grow to $20 billion, with the rest expected in the coming weeks.
OpenAI originally sought $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation but scaled back after an AI-sector selloff. Anthropic's valuation is also under pressure ahead of its planned IPO (the sale of a company’s shares to the public on a stock exchange) .
Rowe Price, SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and a consortium from the United Arab Emirates. OpenAI is also working with investment banks to bring in wealthy individual investors. If OpenAI is already courting dentists to scrape together more capital, it tells you the AI funding market is either tapped out or too concentrated on OpenAI and Anthropic.