OpenAI will be one of the most valuable U.S. startups on paper if the acquisition goes through. According to the Wall Street Journal, American tech company OpenAI is negotiating to sell shares in a takeover bid. In the process, the company is valued at around $29 billion. OpenAI is behind the recently viral chatbot ChatGPT and the image generator Dall-E.
The venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Founders Fund are in talks to invest in the business. The conversations revolve around selling at least $300 million worth of shares from existing investors, such as employees. According to the newspaper, the deal would nearly double the company’s valuation compared with a takeover bid in 2021, making it one of the most valuable U.S. startups, despite low earnings revenue.
OpenAI‘s previous backers include Microsoft, which has invested $1 billion in the company. Last month, Reuters reported that OpenAI expects $200 million in revenue this year and $1 billion in annual revenue by 2024, and was last valued at $20 billion.
The company, co-founded by Elon Musk and Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman, makes money by charging developers to license its technology. Microsoft, for example, is preparing to incorporate ChatGPT into its Bing search engine to answer conversational-style search queries. This is intended to lure users away from competitor Google.