💸 OpenAI: $80 Billion
3rd largest unicorn globally
Hello,
Nvidia had a blowout Q1. An astonishing 628% YoY growth in Q1 earnings propelled it to the 3rd most valuable publicly listed company in the world.
Nvidia is now worth more than Amazon and Tesla combined, and is dangerously close to overtaking Apple.
However, AI’s impact is not just limited to the public markets.
OpenAI, the creator of viral chatbot ChatGPT, is now the 3rd most valuable unicorn in the world.
DATA STORY
Made using Vizzlo
In the fast-paced world of startups, unicorns are the rare breed that have galloped their way to a $1B+ valuation. CB Insight’s Unicorn tracker lists 1,240 such unicorns across the world, at a combined valuation of $3.9 Trillion.
Not all private companies are considered as “Startups” or “Unicorn” though. There are many large companies in the world (e.g. Cargill) which are privately held, but are not considered startup unicorns.
I think “startups” and “unicorns” are terms associated with the Venture capital (VC) industry and a company needs to be venture funded for it to be considered as a startup (irrespective of how old it is). Some companies in the list above, for e.g. SpaceX, is more than 20 years old, but still makes it to the Unicorn list, primarily because it continues to be backed by VCs
OpenAI is valued now at a staggering $80B. This makes it more valuable than companies like Ferrari and Shopify!
OpenAI’s rise has been extraordinary. Just over a year ago it was valued at $29B. With a reported $2B in annualized revenue, its current valuation gives it a very rich valuation multiple of ~40x Price/Sales (for ref. Nvidia Price/Sales is ~33x)
Bytedance (the parent company behind TikTok) is the most valuable unicorn in the world, followed by SpaceX. These two have held this spot for a while. US continues to dominate the unicorn world, with 6 out of the top 10 headquartered there.
I don’t love the trend of startups taking forever to go public, as it prevents retail investors from investing in high-growth companies.
From this list above, I would have loved to get a piece of OpenAI, Canva and SpaceX when they were smaller. Btw, this wasn’t always the case - Amazon was only 3 years old, and had $15.7 million in annual sales when it went public in 1997. Startups have now access to large private capital markets, enabling them to stay private for much longer
The AI boom is well and truly here - pushing growth and valuations of both public giants like Nvidia and as well as privately held unicorns like OpenAI.
While its unclear, how long these lofty valuations will last, it is now increasingly apparent that we all need to pay attention to how it transforms businesses and our own work.
DISCOVER
AI industry is moving too fast, and its hard to stay on top of what’s important.
If this sounds like you, then the Rundown AI newsletter from the very talented Rowan Cheung is your answer. A gazillion people read it daily, including employees from OpenAI - a company which makes up half of the news in AI :)
Anyway, check it out from the link below. If you do end up subscribing, this newsletter will get paid a small fee.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! 👋
Well we have the t club now the ones in the club are kids
Nobody would really pay $230 billion for ByteDance.
Yes it has a great product but it’s an app after all. At some point it can be disrupted by amy other social media trend.
Spacex and OpenAI, on the other hand, are creating truly revolutionizing products and they are the “enablers.”