Cathie Wood’s Ark is doubling down on OpenAI with at least $250 million in its new funding round

Cathie Wood.

Cathie Wood’s Ark Venture Fund has agreed to invest at least $250 million in OpenAI’s latest funding round, according to three people familiar with the round. The deal marks the fund’s second investment in the ChatGPT maker.

The money brings the round, one of the largest in startup history, to $6.6 billion. Ark joins Thrive Capital, which led the round, as well as new and returning investors including Microsoft, SoftBank, Nvidia, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter, Fidelity, and Abu Dhabi fund MGX.

Ark Venture Fund’s spot in OpenAI’s latest round is yet another coup for the standalone venture fund, which disclosed it had purchased shares of xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, in May, and Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s fierce rivals, last year.

A spokesperson for Ark Venture Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ark has invested in a number of high-flying startups including SpaceX, FigureAI, and Databricks.