By Anna Tong, Kenrick Cai, Krystal Hu
(Reuters) – As global investors such as Thrive Capital and Tiger Global invested $6.6 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT was looking for commitment beyond just capital – they also wanted investors to refrain from to finance five companies they perceive as close competitors, sources told Reuters. .
The list of companies includes competitors developing large language models such as Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. Also on the list is OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s new company, Safe Superintelligence (SSI). These companies are racing against OpenAI to build large language models, which requires billions in funding.
Two AI application companies, including AI search startup Perplexity and enterprise search firm Glean, were also named in OpenAI’s conversation with investors, suggesting that OpenAI is considering sell more of its tools to businesses and end users as it projects ambitious revenue growth to $11.6 billion in 2017. 2025 from $3.7 billion this year.
OpenAI, Perplexity and SSI declined to comment. Anthropic and Glean did not immediately respond. XAI could not be reached for comment.
The request, while not legally binding, demonstrates how OpenAI leverages its appeal to secure exclusive commitments from its backers in a competitive field where access to capital is crucial.
While such expectations are not uncommon in the venture capital world, it is unusual to come up with a list like OpenAI’s. Most venture capitalists generally refrain from investing in direct competitors of their portfolio companies to avoid reputational risks.
However, this line is blurred for early-stage investors who tend to spread their bets, such as SoftBank and Fidelity, which have invested in both xAI and OpenAI.
Although OpenAI’s request does not apply to its former investors and the investments they have already made, it could have implications for OpenAI’s investors and the five competitors in their future fundraising efforts.
The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal were the first to report some of the companies on the list.
(Reporting by Krystal Hu, Anna Tong and Kenrick Cai in New York; editing by Lisa Shumaker)