OpenAI co-founder Sutskever's start-up seeks $1B funding at $30B valuation
What's the story
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever is looking to raise over $1 billion for his new venture, Safe Superintelligence. The fundraising effort will value the start-up at a whopping $30 billion. This will put Safe Superintelligence among the world's most valuable private tech companies. San Francisco-based venture capital firm Greenoaks Capital Partners will lead this investment round with a proposed investment of $500 million.
Valuation surge
Company's valuation to jump 6-fold
The latest fundraising round marks a major jump in Safe Superintelligence's valuation, which was at $5 billion before. The particulars of this financing round are still being negotiated and could change. In its early days, the company had raised money from top investors such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Neither Greenoaks nor representatives for Sutskever have commented on this development yet.
Company mission
Focus on developing safe AI systems
Safe Superintelligence was founded by Sutskever, a prominent figure in OpenAI's tech development and former Chief Scientist. His co-founders are Daniel Gross, an ex-Apple AI specialist, and Daniel Levy, another former OpenAI researcher. The start-up focuses on building safe AI systems but has not started making money or plans to sell AI products anytime soon.
Plan
Sutskever's vision for Safe Superintelligence
Speaking to Bloomberg in June last year, Sutskever said, "This company is special in that its first product will be the safe superintelligence, and it will not do anything else up until then." "It will be fully insulated from the outside pressures of having to deal with a large and complicated product and having to be stuck in a competitive rat race," he added. Sutskever was a key person behind OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ouster back in 2023.