NEW YORK: OpenAI is in early talks about a potential sale of stock for current and former employees at a valuation of about US$500bil, people briefed on the investment discussions said, marking an enormous gain in value for the artificial intelligence leader.
The company is targeting a secondary stock sale in the billions of dollars, the people said, asking to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorised to discuss the matter publicly.
Existing investors, including Thrive Capital, have approached OpenAI about buying some of the employee shares, the people said.
If the deal goes ahead, it would elevate OpenAI’s on-paper price tag by roughly two-thirds.
Its previous valuation stood at US$300bil in a US$40bil financing round led by SoftBank Group Corp, making it one of the largest privately held companies in the world.
Representatives for OpenAI and Thrive declined to comment.
The latest move follows news last week the startup had secured US$8.3bil from a syndicate of investors for a second tranche of that US$40bil financing, which was oversubscribed by about five times, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions.
OpenAI managed to snag that funding ahead of schedule, the person said.
Major US startups often negotiate share sales for their employees as a way to reward and retain staff, and also attract external investors.
The firm run by Sam Altman is looking to leverage investor demand to provide employees with liquidity that reflects the company’s growth, according to one of the people familiar with the negotiations.
In recent months, OpenAI lost several members of its research staff to Meta Platforms Inc as the latter firm aggressively recruited top talent from Apple Inc and other competitors for its “superintelligence” AI team, offering pay packages in the nine-figure range.
A secondary sale for OpenAI could serve as a way to incentivise staff to remain at the company who are being offered lavish compensation. — Bloomberg
