Tiger Global, a prominent New York-based investment firm, is set to participate in OpenAI’s latest funding round, according to people familiar with the matter, which suggests the AI startup could be valued at more than $150 billion.
Tiger Global isn’t the only player in this big game. Thrive Capital is leading the round, with plans to invest $1 billion, while tech giants like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Apple are also in talks to join.
Tiger Global is no stranger to tech investing. With more than 15 years of experience, the fund made successful bets on Facebook and LinkedIn before they went public. It has also recently expanded its AI portfolio with names like Scale AI and Cohere. 2021 marks Tiger Global’s first foray into OpenAI territory.
OpenAI was valued at $80 billion earlier this year, up from $29 billion the year before. Annual revenue reportedly surpassed $2 billion earlier this year.
OpenAI's growth exploded in late 2022 after the company launched its ChatGPT chatbot, and since then, OpenAI has continued to expand with new enterprise products and forays into AI-powered photo and video creation. According to OpenAI, the company has doubled its weekly active users since the end of last year to 200 million.
The news comes a day after OpenAI released a new artificial intelligence model called o1, which can reason and “solve hard problems.” OpenAI is also actively participating in important discussions about the future of AI. CEO Sam Altman was at the White House with leaders from Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and several US electric utilities to discuss the future of AI energy infrastructure.
The meeting was not limited to energy. Experts also discussed data center capacity, semiconductor manufacturing, and the ability of the power grid to meet the growing demands of the AI industry.
An OpenAI spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
$BTC $WLD $SOL