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As of 2023, the OpenAI Startup Fund managed a $100 million investment budget devoted to early-stage AI companies. The fund offers partnerships to startups in fields such as health care, climate change, and education. The fund is managed by a team with experience in investing, machine learning, engineering, and operations, including members of OpenAI leadership and technical staff. In addition to capital, companies partnering with the fund receive early access to future OpenAI systems, support from the fund’s team, and credits on Microsoft Azure.
The fund was founded on the belief that advancements in AI will introduce a great many new products, services, and applications. The fund's founders also believe that the most enduring and impactful companies will use the expanding capabilities of AI to radically transform existing markets as well as invent entirely new ones. The fund thus serves founders whose companies are deemed to be contributive to this perceived technological shift. The targeted sectors of these companies encompass legal services, language learning, productivity, creative expression, and more.
The fund's Converge program is a five-week program for engineers, designers, researchers, and product builders working with artificial intelligence. The program accepts only a select few participants. Participants receive a $1 million equity investment from the fund and early access to OpenAI's models and programming tools made specifically for companies working with AI. In addition, Converge offers workshops, office hours, and events with practitioners from the OpenAI team and other partner companies. Participants are also invited into a community of founders from the AI tech sector.
The first Converge cohort aimed to consist of roughly ten founding teams. The teams accepted into the program could be at all phases of the seed stage, including solo founders on the initial conceptual stages to co-founding teams already developing a product. The fund encouraged founders from all backgrounds, disciplines, and experience levels to send applications, assuring potential candidates that previous experience working with AI systems is not a requirement.
