Two years after announcing its own startup investment fund, generative AI leader OpenAI has nearly doubled its size, according to a new document filed with the SEC.
When OpenAI launched the OpenAI Startup Fund in 2021, the organization said that it would deploy $100 million to startups that have "big ideas about how to use AI to transform the world," co-founder and CEO Sam Altman said in a video announcing the fund.
It has now raised $175 million for the fund, according to the new filing.
OpenAI announced its initial four investments in December, which were all Bay Area-based software companies.
Three are based in San Francisco: Descript, which is developing video editing tools; Harvey, which is developing tools for the legal industry; and Speakeasy Labs, also known as Speak, which is a conversational tutor for learning new languages. Los Altos-based Mem Labs is developing productivity tools for workers.
The fund has since invested in four additional startups, according to PitchBook. They include three more San Francisco startups: EdgeDB, an open-source database management organization; Atomic Semi, a semiconductor chip designer; and Unify, which develops business automation software;
It has also invested in a Norwegian company called 1X, formerly Halodi, that is trying to developing human-like robots.
Microsoft and the University of Michigan Endowment are the fund's limited partners, according to PitchBook.
Neither OpenAI nor the University of Michigan Endowment responded to requests for comment.
Altman also recently testified at a congressional hearing about the dangers and benefits of artificial intelligence to society. The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law held a hearing on March 16 and invited Altman to testify, along with IBM's head of privacy and trust, Christina Montgomery, and New York University professor emeritus Gary Marcus.
"If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that," Altman told Congress. "We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."
President Joe Biden's administration is also developing a national strategy on AI that seeks to balance the benefits and dangers of the technology, the WSJ reported on Tuesday.
