OpenAI’s Endless Fundraising

If you’re like me, you’re getting political fundraising text messages roughly every 15 minutes these days. But political candidates aren’t the only people raising money aggressively right now. There are also AI startup executives, most obviously the folks at OpenAI. Today we scooped the news that SoftBank is putting $500 million into OpenAI as part of a fundraising which is expected to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation. 

Masayoshi Son’s investment firm joins Thrive Capital, Microsoft, Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management, among others, in the round while The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple had dropped out. Let’s hope OpenAI’s fundraising people have a lot of energy. At the rate the company is losing money—The New York Times reported on Friday it was expected to lose $5 billion this year, confirming The Information’s estimate from late July—the ChatGPT creator will likely have to raise even more money in another year or so.