On February 27 local time, OpenAI announced the completion of a new financing round, raising a total of $110 billion. The company's pre-money valuation has risen to $730 billion. This round was led by Amazon with a $50 billion investment, with SoftBank Group and NVIDIA each contributing $30 billion. This transaction size more than doubles last year's record-breaking financing, making it one of the largest private equity financings in tech history.
Strategic Partnership Upgrade: Amazon Joins the Fray, NVIDIA Secures Computing Power
OpenAI stated that the company has also signed a strategic partnership agreement with Amazon and secured supply for NVIDIA's next-generation inference computing power. With the progress of this financing round, other financial investors are expected to join. OpenAI said: "These partnerships expand our global reach, deepen infrastructure development, and strengthen our balance sheet, enabling us to bring cutting-edge AI to more people, businesses, and communities worldwide."
Rapid Growth in Users and Revenue: Weekly Active Users Exceed 900 Million, Subscription Users Surge
It is reported that since the beginning of this year, the weekly active users of Codex (an AI code generation training model developed by OpenAI) have more than tripled, reaching 1.6 million. ChatGPT's weekly active users have exceeded 900 million, with individual subscribers surpassing 50 million and paid enterprise users exceeding 9 million. OpenAI indicated that the growth momentum of subscription users has significantly accelerated since the beginning of the year, with January and February expected to be the months with the highest number of new subscribers in the company's history.
Financial Data: Book Cash of $40 Billion, Revenue Expected to Double
Upon completion of this financing round, OpenAI's book cash is approximately $40 billion. The company expects revenue to grow from $13 billion in 2025 to over $30 billion in 2026. Furthermore, the valuation increase from the financing has raised the value of the shares held by the OpenAI Foundation in the group to over $180 billion.
Historical Review: From Non-profit Lab to Global AI Giant
Founded in 2015, OpenAI was initially positioned as a non-profit artificial intelligence research laboratory, co-founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others, with the aim of promoting friendly artificial general intelligence (AGI). In November 2022, OpenAI launched the conversational AI product ChatGPT, quickly sparking a global wave of generative AI and bringing the company into the mainstream spotlight.
With technological breakthroughs and accelerated commercialization, OpenAI established a capped-profit subsidiary in 2019 to accept external investment for computing resources. Microsoft has been a key financial supporter since 2019, with cumulative investments totaling approximately $13 billion. OpenAI emphasized that this financing "will not change in any way" its partnership with Microsoft. A joint statement from both parties stated that the collaboration remains "strong and core."
