OpenAI is launching a second venture fund, with the ChatGPT developer as the sole investor, according to The Wall Street Journal.
OpenAI Startup Fund II, L.P., an affiliate of the artificial intelligence firm, filed a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, disclosing a $400 million offering that had been fully sold. A spokesperson for the firm told the WSJ that the fund consists entirely of capital from OpenAI, citing the success of its first fund, which backed companies including Cursor, subsequently acquired by SpaceX.
OpenAI raised $175 million for its first venture fund in 2021, but was not an investor itself.
"We're looking to partner with early-stage startups in fields where artificial intelligence can have a transformative effect - like healthcare, law, education, energy and infrastructure, the sciences, and more - and where AI tools can empower people by helping them be more productive," OpenAI said at that time.
The first fund has made 38 investments alongside co-investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and General Catalyst, according to PitchBook data. That fund is now fully deployed, according to the WSJ.
The second fund will make similar investments, OpenAI told the WSJ, aiming to back eight to 10 companies per year with check sizes ranging from the low millions up to $100 million "for the right opportunity."
AGI in 2026?
In an interview with Time magazine published earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI was "not quite yet" there, but by the end of this year the company could have in place an internal system he would call artificial general intelligence (AGI).
AGI is a theoretical AI system that can match human intelligence across a broad range of tasks, whereas Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) would greatly exceed human intelligence across virtually all domains.