The artificial intelligence company OpenAI aims to increase its valuation to approximately $500 billion by selling shares to its employees. According to a source familiar with the matter, this move highlights OpenAI‘s rapidly increasing user and revenue growth, while also showcasing the intense competition in the AI sector.
OpenAI, currently valued at $300 billion, will offer its employees the opportunity to purchase several billion dollars worth of shares through this sale. This transaction may take place before a potential IPO. The source preferred to remain anonymous because the discussions are being conducted privately. OpenAI, which also owns ChatGPT, doubled its revenue in the first seven months of the year, reaching an annual turnover of $12 billion, and aims to increase this figure to $20 billion by the end of the year. With the support of Microsoft, ChatGPT’s user base has risen from 400 million in February to 700 million weekly. The share sale discussions follow OpenAI’s $40 billion funding round earlier this year, led by SoftBank. SoftBank aims to finance $22.5 billion of this round by the end of the year.
In the field of artificial intelligence, Meta plans to create its own superintelligence unit by investing billions of dollars in Scale AI and hiring its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang. Additionally, private companies such as ByteDance, Databricks, and Ramp are rewarding long-term employees by updating their valuations through share sales.
Thrive Capital, an existing OpenAI investor, is also considering participating in this share sale, but the firm declined to comment.
News of this potential sale was first reported by Bloomberg. OpenAI is undergoing a major corporate restructuring, moving away from its profit-limited model, and is considering a future IPO. However, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Sarah Friar, stated in May that an IPO would only happen when the company and the market were ready.
