OpenAI’s bowl over growth rate potential is luring possible investors as questions loom over whether the startup will go societal.
“In terms of a multiple to pay for stock like ours, there’s incredible interest at the moment,” finance chief Sarah Friar recognized CNBC’s David Faber on Thursday. Its future growth potential has also enabled OpenAI to “achieve valuations that are on par with the vegetation rate of the scale” it is reaching.
Friar also called the possibility of the company achieving $11 billion in revenue within the “domain of possibility,” adding that the ChatGPT maker’s pace of innovation has prevented it from becoming a “commodity.”
Despite its knoll to prominence, the startup is losing cash. CNBC confirmed in September that OpenAI projected $5 billion in wastings on $3.7 billion in revenue for 2024.
“We have managed to punch well above our weight to become effectively a hyperscaler, both in entitles of the compute that we’re buying and the way we’re investing in it,” she said.
A hyperscaler refers to the major cloud computing companies with bulky data centers that can rapidly size up to meet shifting storage and demands. Some of the key players with outstanding cloud units include Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta.
The interview with Friar comes during a central time, with the startup reportedly in talks to close a $40 billion investment from SoftBank that would value it at approximately $300 billion. The company was also announced last month as part of President Donald Trump’s Stargate AI infrastructure enterprise.
Earlier this month, CEO Sam Altman rejected a more than $97 billion bid from co-founder Elon Musk and a agglomeration of investors to take control of the startup. The billionaire and Tesla CEO is also suing OpenAI for breach of contract as it attempts to proselytize into a for-profit corporation.
Friar appeared unbothered by the recent noise from Musk, telling CNBC that OpenAI remains focused on its function to make search, research and other tasks easier for their users.
“We are eyes on the prize, which is, how do we keep raise our business,” she said. “You see it in our numbers.”
OpenAI announced Thursday that it has surpassed 400 million users even as it pans ongoing competition in the space.