According to the New York Times, Sam Altman-led OpenAI has closed a deal that values the business at at least $80 billion. Additionally, the New York Times reports that OpenAI’s most recent valuation is about three times higher than what the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) company was originally valued at, around a decade ago.
As per the NYT story, OpenAI is set to sell its shares through a tender offer spearheaded by Thrive Capital. The offering would enable OpenAI employees to cash out their employer shares and deviates from the customary funding rounds when funds are raised for business operations.
This places Elon Musk’s SpaceX and China-based ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, behind OpenAI as one of the most valuable tech firms in the world.
How much was OpenAI worth before?
The Altman-led corporation was discovered to be valued $29 billion in a comparable transaction early in the previous year. Thrive Capital was participating in this deal as well, along with venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global. Together, they decided to buy OpenAI shares through a tender offer, putting the AI startup’s valuation at approximately $29 billion.
“Sora” from OpenAI
The announcement of Sora, a new AI tool from ChatGPT that can allegedly “create realistic 60-second videos on the basis of text prompts,” corresponds with the deal story.
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy… pic.twitter.com/ruTEWn87vf
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024
In a post presenting Sora, OpenAI stated, “We’re teaching AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction.”