April 07, 2024 – Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is reportedly in talks with investors to raise a whopping 3billion,amovethatcouldpotentiallypushthecompany′svaluationto18 billion.
According to sources close to the matter, the funding round has piqued the interest of several big names in the venture capital world, including Gigafund and Steve Jurvetson. Gigafund, founded in July 2017 by PayPal co-founders Stephen Oskoui and Luke Nosek, has a history of investing in innovative technologies. Jurvetson, on the other hand, is a co-founder of another venture capital firm, Future Ventures.
Interestingly, both Gigafund and Jurvetson have a long-standing relationship with Musk’s ventures, having previously invested in companies like SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
The specific terms of the xAI funding are still being negotiated, and there’s a possibility that the plans could undergo changes. Nonetheless, this funding round underscores the intensifying competition among AI giants. xAI is not alone in the race; Amazon-backed Anthropic and Microsoft-supported OpenAI are also vying for dominance in the AI space.
Just last week, Amazon announced an additional investment of 2.75billioninAnthropic,bringingitstotalinvestmentinthegenerativeAIcompanyto4 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft has committed over $13 billion to OpenAI.
As technology giants ramp up their investments in AI, the competition in this sector is heating up, with xAI’s latest funding round being a testament to the growing interest and belief in the transformative power of artificial intelligence.
