OpenAI Takes Equity Stake in Thrive Holdings

OpenAI, the AI giant and the maker of ChatGPT, has entered into a new partnership with Thrive Holdings (Holdings).

As part of the deal, OpenAI will take an equity stake in Holdings, aiming to bring frontier AI into sectors and industries that work on legacy workflows and systems that have barely changed in decades.

“The partnership will bring together a unique, cross-functional team, comprising OpenAI’s leading research and applied AI teams working alongside engineers, operators, and industry experts at Holdings to deeply integrate AI into the businesses that we own and operate,” said Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital, in a post on X.

The partnership will involve training advanced AI models for specific tasks within Holding’s businesses, “guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback,” added Kushner.

Other financial details of the partnership were not revealed at the time of the announcement.

“OpenAI now has equity and train models for tasks with company-specific data,” said Sheel Mohnot, a general partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, in a post on X.

Many others also expressed a similar reaction to the partnership, possibly opening up more avenues of training OpenAI’s models.

Holdings is a holding company created by Thrive Capital in 2025, designed to acquire and operate businesses in traditional service sectors such as accounting and IT.

And Thrive Capital, the New York-based venture capital firm founded in 2009, has backed several high-profile technology companies and is also an established investor in OpenAI.

In 2024, the VC firm led a major $6.6 billion funding round in OpenAI, committing roughly $1 billion.

As of the most recent reports around the share sale of OpenAI employee stock, Thrive was among the firms that bought shares — a deal that reportedly helped push OpenAI’s post-money valuation to around $500 billion.

This has raised fresh questions about the circular nature of the arrangement.

Recent reports suggest that OpenAI’s valuation has surged to $750 billion.

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