OpenAI Startup Fund, the early-stage AI investor affiliated with OpenAI, recently announced in a financial filing that it has achieved this educated over $44 million for its fifth Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) – its largest to this point.
The fund, launched in 2021, has an unusual structure. It uses OpenAI's name but says OpenAI just isn’t an investor. Originally legally controlled by OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, the corporate has raised money from outside LPs including Microsoft, a significant OpenAI supporter, and “other OpenAI partners,” in line with its website. Altman relinquished legal control to general partner Ian Hathaway earlier this yr.
VCs typically use SPVs to pool money from investors and invest outside of their foremost fund. However, the fund stays silent concerning the exact purpose of those funds.
An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that this SPV “will probably be used to support quite a lot of existing portfolio firms and make latest investments.”
“SPVs allow us to allocate capital opportunistically to high-potential investments.”
The fund, founded in 2021, has been on an actual SPV track this yr, announcing five separate vehicles that now total $114.2 million:
- SPV IJanuary 2024: $10,000,000
- SPV IIApril 2024: $24,999,947 (initially stated as $15 million, later modified)
- SPV IIIMay 2024: $5,000,000 (as covered by TechCrunch)
- SPV IVJuly 2024: $29,916,411
- SPV VDecember 2024: $44,281,693
Despite the flurry of activity, the web site is sparse and has the most recent version News posted a yr ago. The site only discloses a few of its investments, resembling legitimate AI startups Harvey and AI note-taking app Mem.
However, the fund is more energetic than stated on its website. Notable investments this yr include Thrive Health, an AI healthcare company between Sam Altman and Ariana Huffington, and warm outbound startup Unify.
The fund can also be a seed investor in Anysphere, which is currently in the course of a VC bidding war because of its AI code assistant Cursor.
These SPVs are all above those of the fund original capital of $175.25 million, which was previously raised in October 2021.
