The World's Most Valuable Unicorns

When Sam Altman gives the opening keynote at OpenAI’s annual developers conference DevDay at Fort Mason in San Francisco on Monday, he will do so as the CEO of the world’s most valuable startup. Following the sale of $6.6 billion in shares held by current and former employees, OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT and other AI tools – is now valued at $500 billion, the highest-ever valuation for a privately held company.

The sale that pushed OpenAI’s valuation to this record high wasn’t a traditional funding round, as the proceeds from the sale went to individual shareholders rather than the company itself. Instead of funding new investments, it will help the company in a different area: talent retention. By allowing some employees to cash in, OpenAI is hoping to increase the likelihood of them resisting big money offers from competitors in the AI arms race, with Meta in particular aggressively trying to poach high-level AI talent with astronomical signing fees.

Prior to the latest share sale, OpenAI had raised $40 billion in additional funding at a valuation of $300 billion this year, with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank alone investing $30 billion in the AI trailblazer. SoftBank was also among the buyers in the latest stock sale, along with other prior investors such as Thrive Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group.

According to Crunchbase, its latest valuation puts OpenAI ahead of SpaceX, ByteDance and fellow AI company Anthropic on the list of the world’s most valuable unicorns. Last month, Bloomberg reported that crypto giant Tether was eyeing a similar valuation in an upcoming funding round, but until that is confirmed, OpenAI stands alone as the first privately held company to reach a valuation of half a trillion dollars.