OpenAI managed to raise just $11 billion in its latest round of investment before its IPO — nearly three times less than the planned $30 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. Investors valued the company at $1.25 trillion; The AI developer expected the company to be valued at $1.4 trillion.
The modest results of the round are explained by the cooling of investor interest in the artificial intelligence sector and increased caution in investing funds. At the same time, there is a large-scale selloff in technology stocks caused by weak financial reports from Google, Amazon and Intel, the paper notes. The creator of ChatGPT lowered the bar and intends to bring the total scope of the round to 20 billion dollars. According to WSJ sources, OpenAI told shareholders that it intends to raise funds in the coming weeks - it will turn to family offices and private investors with large capital. The company's main competitor Anthropic, meanwhile, is showing financial success. Anthropic's revenue more than doubled to $11.6 billion between the first and second quarters, while OpenAI's revenue rose about 18% to $6.7 billion in the same period. Earlier this week, Anthropic filed paperwork for an IPO planned for next month. Earlier it became known that lawmakers in Congress and White House officials are not satisfied with the leadership of leading artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic - they see their actions and statements as "a huge political liability". Politicians complain that instead of convincing the public of the benefits of technology, senior executives constantly warn of the existential threats of artificial intelligence and global disaster. Lawmakers note that the developers' rhetoric ranges from promises of prosperity to prophecies of the apocalypse, which only increases panic and public discontent.