OpenAI launches AI consulting arm valued at $14 billion
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
OpenAI on Monday unwrapped its new consulting and services business, backed by billions of private equity dollars, as Axios previewed last week.
- It's being called The OpenAI Deployment Co., or DeployCo for short.
What we knew: DeployCo launches with $4 billion of investment at a $10 billion pre-money valuation, with OpenAI retaining majority control. It's not in today's announcement, but investors get a guaranteed minimum 17.5% return and have profits capped.
- Goldman Sachs is the only backer of both DeployCo and a comparable effort from Anthropic.
What we didn't know: Three blue-blood consultancies — Bain & Co., Capgemini and McKinsey & Co. — are among DeployCo's investors.
- The generous interpretation is that the trio will gain a deeper understanding of OpenAI's capabilities and roadmap, which they can then share with clients.
- The more cynical interpretation is that OpenAI somehow convinced these legacy firms to help fund their own disintermediation.
Zoom in: TPG is DeployCo's lead investor, with Advent International, Bain Capital, and Brookfield listed as "co-lead founding partners."
- Other backers include B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna, SoftBank, Warburg Pincus, and WCAS.
- Axios previously noted that DeployCo may acquire forward-deployed engineering teams, and today's announcement mentioned that it's already bought one called Tomoro.
What to watch: If other big PE firms like Carlyle, KKR and EQT come into the frontier lab fold, or if they decide there's more value in remaining unaffiliated.
