SoftBank spearheaded a $40 billion fundraising round for OpenAI, which is valued at $300 billion. This is the biggest funding round ever, almost doubling its previous valuation, and it coincides with the excitement around the release of Ghibli films.
On April 1, Sam Altman, the creator and CEO of OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, revealed that the Ghibli-style image generating tool on the platform helped it reach a record 1 million users in just one hour. According to a Bloomberg article, the artificial intelligence (AI) tech business has now doubled its valuation to $300 billion by securing $40 billion from investors in a funding round led by Softbank Group, all because to user engagement.
Every week, hundreds of millions of individuals utilize ChatGPT. In a statement released on March 31, Sam Altman remarked, “This investment helps us push the frontier and make AI more useful in everyday life.”
The largest financing round in history, according to the article, which referenced Pitchbook, nearly doubles OpenAI’s valuation from $157 billion since its October 2024 fundraise to $300 billion this year.
Who is Investing in OpenAI? What’s the Timeline? Details here
According to Bloomberg, which cited an insider, Masayoshi Son’s Softbank is spearheading the capital round with an initial investment of $7.5 billion and $2.5 billion from an investor syndicate.
The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Microsoft Corporation, Coatue Management, Altimeter Capital Management, and Thrive Capital are among the other investors in the investment group.
Notably, the same source stated that by the end of 2025, a second tranche of $30 billion will be invested in OpenAI, consisting of $7.5 billion from a syndicate and $22.5 billion from SoftBank.
OpenAI Sees Popularity Boost Thanks to Ghibli Style Images Rollout
On March 26, OpenAI made its native picture generating functionality available to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users globally. On April 1, it made it available to free users as well. Millions of people were impressed by this feature’s capacity to turn any photo into artwork in the style of Studio Ghibli.
According to Sam Altman, OpenAI had to impose limitations on image generation for both free and paid users because of the feature’s high demand, which was “melting its GPUs (graphics processing units).”
Seeing how much people enjoy photographs in ChatGPT is a lot of pleasure. Our GPUs, however, are melting. While we try to make it more efficient, we will temporarily implement some rate constraints. I hope it won’t be long. On X, he said.
