Earlier than founding OpenAI, its chief, Sam Altman, presided over Y Combinator (2014–2019), mentoring and backing quite a few startups. His personal startup journey additionally started at YC, and he has since invested in lots of others.
Not too long ago, a report titled ‘The OpenAI Information’ was launched on Thursday. A collaboration between the Midas Undertaking and the Tech Oversight Undertaking, it claims to be the “most complete assortment thus far” of considerations relating to OpenAI.
In accordance with the report, Altman has invested throughout a number of sectors, together with synthetic intelligence (AI), vitality, healthcare/biotech, finance, know-how, cybersecurity, and social media. His investments span AI {hardware}, cloud computing, vitality infrastructure, nuclear fusion, longevity analysis, fee processing, AI-powered cybersecurity, and partnerships inside social media and rising AI startups.
It additionally lists firms with overlapping enterprise ties to OpenAI, together with partnerships, vendor relationships, and potential acquisitions.
In 2021, Altman invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences, an organization centered on extending human lifespan and addressing age-related illnesses. Retro has partnered with OpenAI, indicating potential collaboration in utilising AI for scientific developments.
Altman additionally dedicated $375 million to Helion Vitality, a nuclear fusion firm working to develop sustainable vitality. OpenAI has reportedly been in talks with Helion to buy fusion vitality, which might be used for its information centres, highlighting the rising want for dependable vitality sources in AI growth.
Altman owns roughly 7.5% of Reddit, and his stake was notably impacted when Reddit partnered with OpenAI to promote coaching information. This partnership resulted in a 13% improve in Reddit’s valuation, boosting Altman’s internet price by an estimated $50 million.
In 2009, Altman made an early funding in Stripe, a fee processing firm, buying a 2% stake. Stripe is now valued at practically $100 billion. In 2023, Stripe and OpenAI introduced a partnership to combine OpenAI’s fashions into Stripe’s merchandise, linking Altman’s funding to OpenAI’s enterprise purposes.
Altman has additionally invested in Rewind AI, an AI {hardware} firm that completely makes use of OpenAI’s fashions. Rewind AI was valued at $350 million in its most up-to-date funding spherical.
In Rain AI, Altman has taken an curiosity in an organization that manufactures chips for AI {hardware}. OpenAI signed a letter of intent to buy $51 million price of chips from Rain and is reportedly contemplating buying the corporate.
Altman’s funding in Exowatt ($35M in Sequence A, 2025) focuses on vitality infrastructure, significantly for AI information facilities. Exowatt’s work on offering vitality options is essential as AI scales and calls for extra computational sources. He has additionally invested $115 million in Rescale (Sequence D, 2025), an AI-powered cloud computing platform that may help OpenAI’s rising cloud and computational wants.
Altman’s more moderen funding in Campus ($46M in Sequence B, 2025) is in an organization that seems to be linked to cloud or AI infrastructure, though the precise connection to OpenAI shouldn’t be totally detailed.
Past his Investments, There may be the OpenAI Startup Fund
Earlier than founding OpenAI, its chief, Sam Altman, presided over Y Combinator (2014–2019), mentoring and backing quite a few startups. His personal entrepreneurial journey started there, and he has since invested in lots of others.
Whereas Altman appeared on the corporate’s debut podcast, a report titled ‘The OpenAI Information’ was launched on Thursday. A collaboration between the Midas Undertaking and the Tech Oversight Undertaking, it claims to be the “most complete assortment thus far” of considerations relating to OpenAI.
In accordance with the report, Altman has invested throughout a number of sectors, together with synthetic intelligence (AI), vitality, healthcare/biotech, finance, know-how, cybersecurity, and social media. His investments span AI {hardware}, cloud computing, vitality infrastructure, nuclear fusion, longevity analysis, fee processing, AI-powered cybersecurity, and partnerships inside social media and rising AI startups.
It additionally lists firms with overlapping enterprise ties to OpenAI, together with partnerships, vendor relationships, and potential acquisitions.
In 2021, Altman invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences, an organization centered on extending human lifespan and addressing age-related illnesses. Retro has partnered with OpenAI, indicating potential collaboration in utilising AI for scientific developments.
Altman additionally dedicated $375 million to Helion Vitality, a nuclear fusion firm working to develop sustainable vitality. OpenAI has reportedly been in talks with Helion to buy fusion vitality, which might be used for its information centres, highlighting the rising want for dependable vitality sources in AI growth.
Altman owns roughly 7.5% of Reddit, and his stake was notably impacted when Reddit partnered with OpenAI to promote coaching information. This partnership resulted in a 13% improve in Reddit’s valuation, boosting Altman’s internet price by an estimated $50 million.
In 2009, Altman made an early funding in Stripe, a fee processing firm, buying a 2% stake. Stripe is now valued at practically $100 billion. In 2023, Stripe and OpenAI introduced a partnership to combine OpenAI’s fashions into Stripe’s merchandise, linking Altman’s funding to OpenAI’s enterprise purposes.
Altman has additionally invested in Rewind AI, an AI {hardware} firm that completely makes use of OpenAI’s fashions. Rewind AI was valued at $350 million in its most up-to-date funding spherical.
In Rain AI, Altman has taken an curiosity in an organization that manufactures chips for AI {hardware}. OpenAI signed a letter of intent to buy $51 million price of chips from Rain and is reportedly contemplating buying the corporate.
Altman’s funding in Exowatt ($35M in Sequence A, 2025) focuses on vitality infrastructure, significantly for AI information facilities. Exowatt’s work on offering vitality options is essential as AI scales and calls for extra computational sources. He has additionally invested $115 million in Rescale (Sequence D, 2025), an AI-powered cloud computing platform that may help OpenAI’s rising cloud and computational wants.
Altman’s more moderen funding in Campus ($46M in Sequence B, 2025) is in an organization that seems to be linked to cloud or AI infrastructure, though the precise connection to OpenAI shouldn’t be totally detailed.
Past his Investments, There may be the OpenAI Startup Fund
OpenAI’s Startup Fund, launched in 2021, raised $175 million for its fundamental fund and a further $114 million via particular function autos (SPVs).
The corporate has a rising startups group led by Marc Manara.
The fund is backed by exterior buyers, together with Microsoft, and has invested in over a dozen startups.
Anysphere, also called Cursor and creator of the AI-driven coding assistant Cursor, secured an $8 million seed spherical in October 2023, led by OpenAI’s fund.
The fund additionally backed Chai Discovery, an AI firm centered on drug discovery, which raised $30 million in its seed spherical. Class Companion, an edtech startup serving to lecturers present personalised suggestions, raised $4 million in a seed spherical in 2023. One other important funding was in Descript, a platform for collaborative audio and video modifying, which raised $50 million in Sequence C shortly after ChatGPT was launched in late 2022.
In robotics, Determine AI raised $675 million in Sequence B in February 2024, with OpenAI’s fund additionally collaborating.
In the meantime, Harvey AI, a authorized tech startup, raised $21 million in Sequence A. OpenAI continued to put money into the corporate via later rounds, together with a $300 million Sequence D that valued Harvey at $3 billion.
Ghost Autonomy, which developed autonomous driving software program and raised $55 million in a Sequence E spherical, with $5 million from OpenAI’s fund, shut down a 12 months later.
Different firms supported by OpenAI’s fund embrace Heeyo, an AI chatbot for youths that raised $3.5 million; Kick, which is constructing AI-powered bookkeeping instruments, elevating $9 million; and Mem, an AI-powered note-taking app, which secured $23.5 million in Sequence A.
The fund additionally invested in Milo, an AI private assistant for fogeys, and Bodily Intelligence, which develops software program for robots. One other funding was in Communicate, a language studying app, which raised $27 million in Sequence B and later $78 million in Sequence C.
Thrive AI, an AI well being coach startup, raised $10 million via a partnership with Arianna Huffington and OpenAI’s fund. Lastly, Unify, a gross sales tech startup, raised $19 million in seed and Sequence A capital from the fund.
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