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on wednesday local time in the united states, openai, a giant in the field of artificial intelligence, announced that it had successfully completed a financing of up to us$6.6 billion, soaring its valuation to us$157 billion, setting a new valuation record in silicon valley history. this financing is not only openai’s largest venture capital transaction to date, but also marks the company’s successful transformation into a for-profit enterprise.

however, many details about this financing have not yet been fully disclosed. for example, openai provided employees with the opportunity to sell shares in this financing, while setting restrictions on investors not to invest in competing products such as xai. some investors believe that after this series of moves, openai needs to move towards the goal of going public.

01 openai sets investment thresholds: investors are prohibited from supporting five competitors

openai has asked investors to avoid providing financial support to competitors, including anthropic, elon musk's xai, artificial intelligence search startup perplexity, enterprise search company lean and openai co-founder ilya ilya sutskever’s new company safe superintelligence and others aim to defend its early lead in the field of generative artificial intelligence and prevent the rise of potential challengers.

according to three people familiar with the matter,financingduring the negotiation process,OpenAIa clear expression of the desire to obtain exclusive financing arrangements with the intention of limiting competitors’ access to capital and strategic cooperation opportunities by establishing exclusive relationships with investors. this move may further intensify tensions with competitors, especially musk, who is filing a lawsuit against openai.

venture capital firms usually hold sensitive information about the companies they invest in. close cooperation with a certain company often makes it difficult for them to effectively support another direct competitor at the same time, and may even cause controversy within the industry.

however, according to the perspective of the venture capital field, exclusivity requirements are not often strictly enforced, and many industry-leading venture capital firms have diversified their investments across multiple areas to spread risks. for example,sequoia capitalwell-known venture capital firms such as andreessen horowitz have invested in a number of companies including openai and musk’s xai.aistart-ups.

openai was able to offer unusual terms and command a sky-high valuation because investors believed in the company's ability to lead the next wave of artificial intelligence innovation, which is believed to be as profound as the internet or mobile devices. change consumer behavior.

a person familiar with the financing transaction revealed: "because this round of financing was extremely oversubscribed, openai told investors: 'although we will allocate funds to you, we expect you to participate in our business in a substantive way. , thereby avoiding making financial commitments to our competitors.'"

a partner at a top venture capital firm pointed out that ride-hailing giant uber used a similar strategy when it "completely dominated the global market", adding: "when a company has all the chips, they are fully capable." "forcing all parties to make some extraordinary choices."

special purpose vehicles (spvs), a type of venture fund through which venture funds can be raised, have also been used in large funding rounds in recent months for artificial intelligence startups anthropic and xai, according to people familiar with the deals. a financing structure in which funds are used for a specific purpose.

openai said: "the newly injected funds will help us further consolidate our leadership in the field of cutting-edge artificial intelligence research, enhance computing capabilities, and continue to develop tools to help people solve various problems." at the same time, openai also added that it will work with "key partners, including u.s. and allied governments, are working together to unlock the full potential of this technology."

in addition, openai is undergoing a corporate reorganization, a move that will move the startup further away from its original non-profit organization and allow investors to receive richer returns when openai becomes profitable.

02 openai will allow employees to sell some shares after large-scale financing

a memo released by openai revealed that its employees may soon receive permission to sell some of their shares in the artificial intelligence company.

after successfully completing $6.6 billion in financing, openai provides employees with the opportunity to monetize. openai chief financial officer sarah friar made it clear in the memo that the company "has the ability to conduct a bidding exercise to provide eligible employees with the option to sell their shares." fryer further added that the company is currently refining relevant details and will communicate specific information to employees in the subsequent stages.

openai's valuation has nearly doubled from levels earlier this year, when the company made an offer to employees allowing them to sell some of their shares to private investors, valuing the company at about $80 billion.

openai remains the best-known company in the booming artificial intelligence market, thanks to the breakout success of chatgpt, according to people familiar with the matter. chatgpt has 250 million weekly active users and 11 million paying users, with approximately 1 million enterprise customers paying to use its technology.

but the company is far from profitable, making a new round of investment crucial. a person familiar with the company's financial data confirmed that the company is expected to lose about $5 billion on revenue of $3.7 billion this year. its revenue will grow to $11.6 billion by 2025.

03 investors: the next step for openai should be to go public

on wednesday morning, brad gerstner of venture capital giant altimeter capital appeared at the madrona ia summit in seattle. altimeter capital is also one of the investors participating in openai’s $6.6 billion financing.

toward the end of the on-stage conversation, gerstner responded to audience questions about ai safety safeguards and shared his insights on openai's future development, including going public.

he first emphasized that once a company goes public, it must show greater transparency and responsibility. in response to some views that companies need toinitial public offeringgerstner said bluntly: "this is complete nonsense."

gerstner continued: "i sincerely hope and look forward to openai's next move being to go public. at a time when we are about to face massive social unrest, unemployment, and many other challenges, it will be important for every retail investor in the united states to having the opportunity to share the dividends that artificial intelligence will bring, i think is crucial.”

he praised openai as the second largest in the united statesnvidiaof the most important ai companies, adding: “for them not to embrace the scrutiny, transparency, accountability and communication with investors every three months that come with public markets would be a significant miss. ”

of course, as a current investor, gerstner would have a huge financial interest in a potential future initial public offering (ipo) of openai. but this process is not simple, because it first requires openai to transform from its non-profit structure into an independent for-profit company.

gerstner said he was "very pleased" with his conversations with openai's board of directors, ceo sam altman and cfo sarah fryer. he noted that many outside the company don't fully understand the cautious approach they're taking toward new model launches, especially the effort it takes to build relationships with key stakeholders like washington, d.c.

earlier, he mentioned that microsoft's copilot as a consumer brand "will compete fiercely with chatgpt." the good news for microsoft ceo satya nadella is that "he has a lot of chatgpt resources." (tencent technology special compiler/golden deer)