Foundation models
OpenAI
The maker of ChatGPT and the GPT model family, and the company most responsible for the current wave of consumer generative AI.
- Founded
- 2015
- Based in
- San Francisco, United States
- Stage
- Late-stage private
- Business model
- API / developer platform, Consumer subscription, Enterprise contracts
- Also in
- AI search & discovery
- Record
- Needs reviewChecked 24 September 2026
What OpenAI does
OpenAI was founded in San Francisco in December 2015 as a non-profit AI research lab, restructured in 2019 around a capped-profit subsidiary to raise the capital frontier AI research requires, and now operates through the OpenAI Foundation and OpenAI Group PBC. It builds the GPT family of large language models, the ChatGPT consumer product built on them, and a developer API that a large share of the generative-AI application layer is built on top of.
Its releases have repeatedly set the pace for the rest of the industry: GPT-3 in 2020 demonstrated large-scale few-shot learning, GPT-4 in 2023 brought multimodal reasoning to a mass consumer product, and Sora brought that same trajectory to video generation. ChatGPT, launched in November 2022, remains the reference point most people mean when they say "AI chatbot".
- Large language models
- Multimodal models
- AI agents
- Developer APIs & tooling
Runs it
- Sam AltmanCo-founder & CEO
- Ilya SutskeverCo-founder
- Greg BrockmanCo-founder & President
- Elon MuskCo-founder (departed 2018)
OpenAI
Late-stage private
Funds it
- Microsoft
- Thrive Capital
- SoftBank
- Coatue
What it builds
ChatGPT
Consumer and enterprise conversational assistant built on the GPT model family.
chatgpt.com (opens in a new tab)GPT API
Developer API for the GPT model family, the base layer much of the generative-AI application ecosystem is built on.
platform.openai.com (opens in a new tab)Sora
Text-to-video generation model and app.
sora.chatgpt.com (opens in a new tab)Codex
AI coding agent and API for software development tasks.
Who runs it
Founders
Sam Altman
Co-founder & CEO
Previously president of Y Combinator.
Ilya Sutskever
Co-founder
Left OpenAI in 2024 to found Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Greg Brockman
Co-founder & President
Elon Musk
Co-founder (departed 2018)
Resigned from OpenAI's board in 2018; later founded xAI, a direct competitor.
Leadership
Sam Altman
Chief Executive Officer
Who funds it
- Total raised
- Tens of billions of dollars across primary rounds since 2019, led by Microsoft and a syndicate of venture and sovereign investors.
- Valuation, as of Mar 2026
- Reported between roughly $500 billion and $850 billion, depending on the round and source
Rounds on record
Primary round
Reported post-money valuation of approximately $500 billion in a secondary sale, and a subsequent primary round reported at a higher valuation.
getlatka.com/companies/open-ai (opens in a new tab)
Investors
- Microsoft
- Thrive Capital
- SoftBank
- Coatue
What it has done
New funding round reported at a sharply higher valuation
OpenAI closed a funding round reported by multiple financial-data trackers at a post-money valuation in the hundreds of billions of dollars, continuing a rapid re-rating through 2025-2026. Exact figures vary by source - see the note on this record.
getlatka.com/companies/open-ai (opens in a new tab)
Related files
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Direct competitor, co-founded by a former OpenAI co-founder
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