AI startup OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it has raised a total of $122 billion at a valuation of $852 billion, as per an official press release.
The update comes after OpenAI was reportedly looking for fresh sources of private equity to help the company continue funding its product development, which continues at a rapid pace.
“The fastest way to expand AI’s benefits is to put useful intelligence in people’s hands early and let access compound globally. This funding gives us resources to lead at scale,” read the X post.
The announcement was met with a mix of skepticism and support from the X community. The skeptics take issue with the fact that OpenAI continues to run a massive revenue burn and does not yet have a set of products that are truly considered consumer-ready.
“$2B/month in revenue and still not profitable. the compute costs behind these models are genuinely insane. $122B sounds like a war chest until you realize how fast AI infrastructure burns through cash,” said X user Mahlue Gee.
The startup’s appetite for funding remains huge with the firm previously saying it secured $110 billion in fresh investment in February.
The funding round included fresh support from a round of investors old and new, with financial backing from Amazon, NVIDIA, and SoftBank—companies that have invested heavy capital running into the tens of billions in dollar amounts into the startup.
Other investors were a16z, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and accounts linked to T.Rowe Price Associates etc.
The official statement by OpenAI says that adoption remains strong both on the consumer and enterprise side, with ChatGPT having a weekly usage of more than 900 million active users and over 50 million subscribers. On the enterprise side, earnings make more than 40% of total revenues.