Apple targets OpenAI: investment will take former start-up over 100 billion

First the agreement for artificial intelligence on the iPhone. Then the (only feared) entry into the company's board of directors. Now an active part in the new financing round. The relationship between Apple and OpenAI seems destined to intensify. In fact, the Cupertino company is among the investors who will bring fresh liquidity into the coffers of the former San Francisco start-up. Liquidity that will allow the ChatGPT producer to reach (and exceed) $100 billion in value. An enormous figure, in view of a future IPO, for a company - OpenAI - that was born as a non-profit.

Sam Altman's company is indeed in talks to raise new funding as it tries to capitalise on its leading position in the world of artificial intelligence. According to sources, the San Francisco-based company is talking to a number of venture capital firms, including Thrive Capital, which will invest $1 billion and lead this new investment round. But it is mainly in talks with Apple, which is the real big player in this operation, and which by investing in OpenAI would become an active participant in the global AI challenge.

The terms of the new financing have not yet been finalised, but OpenAI will cross the $100 billion mark. Quite a leap, considering that ChatGPT's parent company is currently valued at around $86 billion (although the Financial Times wrote that according to an investor in the company, OpenAI's shares were recently traded on the secondary market at a price implying a valuation of over $110 billion).

OpenAI last raised new capital in early 2023, just after the launch of its flagship chatbot ChatGPT, when Microsoft committed $10 billion to the company in a funding round that valued the start-up at around $30 billion. Microsoft has, to date, bet around $13 billion on the former San Francisco start-up, making it the lender of choice. But it is unclear whether the Redmond giant will also participate in the current round. Round in which Apple will participate instead, although the figures have not emerged.

OpenAI's valuation has skyrocketed due to rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence and growing expectations that the technology will reshape various sectors of the economy. With the launch of ChatGPT, the Californian company - which has a not-for-profit background - has become absolutely central in the new digital world. And it has dragged up a company like Nvidia, whose chips drive ChatGPT's algorithms. Recently, OpenAI's revenues increased to $2 billion year-on-year earlier this year. OpenAI is facing increasing competition from rivals such as Anthropic, Google, and Elon Musk's xAI, which recently raised $6 billion in an attempt to close the gap with ChatGPT. A new investment would give OpenAI more firepower to realise its long-awaited new model, GPT-5.