(Oct 10): OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor’s Sierra is in talks to secure new funding at a US$4 billion (RM17.17 billion)-plus valuation, a person familiar with the deal said, underscoring sustained investor interest in artificial intelligence (AI) despite concerns about ballooning startup price tags. 

Sierra, co-founded last year with former Google executive Clay Bavor, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars in its latest round, the person said, asking to remain anonymous as the deal hasn’t closed. That would more than triple Sierra’s valuation from a January deal that made it a unicorn.

Taylor, previously a co-chief executive officer at software specialist Salesforce Inc, and Bavor focus on using AI to help corporate clients in areas such as customer service. The latest capital infusion — led by Greenoaks Capital — comes on top of about US$110 million in previous funding, The Information reported earlier. 

A deal of that scale would give a boost to Taylor, who became one of the most important figures in the burgeoning arena when he joined the board of OpenAI. Sierra’s financing emerged days after the ChatGPT creator completed one of the largest funding rounds in startup history, a US$6.6 billion financing that conferred a US$157 billion valuation on the generative AI pioneer.

That deal underscored optimism about the prospects for AI and investor willingness to bankroll increasingly costly AI development, despite the lack of clear use cases or killer apps thus far.

Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee