ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Raises US$122 Billion At A Valuation of $852 Billion
The transaction ranks among the largest funding rounds secured by technology companies to date, exceeding recent raises by privately backed startups as well as some acquisitions and initial public offerings.
OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind the artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, ChatGPT, has wrapped up a US$122 billion funding round at a valuation of $852 billion, marking its largest capital raise to date as it increases spending on chips, data centers, and talent.
A Bloomberg report noted that the bulk of the financing came from major names in the technology space: e-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon committed $50 billion, while AI infrastructure powerhouse NVIDIA and global investment conglomerate SoftBank Group each invested $30 billion. The round also drew participation from OpenAI’s long-term partner, Microsoft, one of the world’s largest technology companies.
This investment in OpenAI also secured backing from notable entities like Andreessen Horowitz, D. E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. There was also significant participation from a diverse set of global institutions including Altimeter, Appaloosa LP, ARK Invest, affiliated funds of BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, Dragoneer, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Goanna Capital, Insight Partners, The Paragon Group, Sands Capital, Sequoia Capital, Sound Ventures, Temasek, Thrive Capital, UC Investments, and Winslow Capital. Additionally, over $3 billion was raised from individual investors.
The transaction ranks among the largest funding rounds secured by technology companies to date, exceeding recent raises by privately backed startups as well as some acquisitions and initial public offerings, thus reflecting continued investor interest in AI as it expands across industries and economies. In a statement, OpenAI noted its track record as the fastest technology platform to reach 10 million users, the fastest to 100 million users, and soon, the fastest to one billion weekly active users. Within a year of launching ChatGPT in November 2022, OpenAI had reached $1 billion in revenue, and by the end of 2024, it was generating $1 billion per quarter. Now, the company claims to be generating $2 billion in revenue per month.
ChatGPT currently boasts of more than 900 million weekly active users, and over 50 million subscribers. It claims to have 6x the monthly web visits and mobile sessions than the next largest AI app, while total AI time spent is 4x the next largest AI app, and 4x all others combined. The company also states that search usage has nearly tripled in a year, and its ads pilot is said to have reached more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue in under six weeks. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s enterprise offerings now make up more than 40 percent of its revenue.
In terms of the future, OpenAI revealed its plans to build “a unified AI super app,” which will bring together ChatGPT, its AI coding agent Codex, and its browsing and broader suite of agentic capabilities into one agent-first experience. The Bloomberg also noted that a portion of Amazon’s investment totaling $35 billion is tied to conditions requiring OpenAI to either go public or achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), a form of AI that equals or exceeds human performance across nearly all cognitive tasks.
