OpenAI’s DevDay, held Monday at San Francisco’s historic Fort Mason, was exceptionally Apple-coded.
It seems obvious to say—after all, CEO Sam Altman has previously spoken about his admiration of Steve Jobs and iPhone designer Jony Ive is now at OpenAI, to the tune of billions. But sitting in a bright, converted firehouse, watching Altman and other OpenAI leaders (Greg Brockman, Brad Lightcap, and Nick Turley) take questions, I realized I’d never thought that corollary (or ambition) through entirely.
The day’s product announcements were odes to simplicity and ease of use. The company’s Apps SDK featured tie-ins with partners like Canva and Zillow, while the AgentKit product was the first thing I’ve seen so far that actually makes me think I have a fighting chance of building an agent of my own. Codex, OpenAI’s coding tool, became available to all, with a Slack integration to boot.
The message, textually and subtextually, over and over was encapsulated in something Altman said to the crowd during the morning keynote: “We’re going to focus on what matters most to you all, which is making it easier to build with AI.”
With its $500 billion valuation, OpenAI has become one of the most powerful and influential privately held companies to ever come upon the tech sector. Still, there’s a lot of tension embedded in OpenAI’s story right now.
On one hand, they’re a dazzling market leader, with 800 million weekly active users, and the power to move public markets. On the other hand, there are areas in which OpenAI isn’t the obvious winner. A number I kept turning over in my head: OpenAI has four million developers on its platform, which is the same number of developers working with startup Supabase, which I covered last week as they hit a $5 valuation. It’s a contradiction—one of the most powerful companies in the world, yet with no guarantee of permanence.
In this vein, OpenAI seems to be operating with a keen awareness of its competitive environment and is candid about what it doesn’t know. In response to a question about how advertising may affect ChatGPT, Altman told journalists: “This is exactly why we’re trying to keep an open mind right now, because it’s impossible to foresee certain interaction effects between those decisions…We’re being humble about the future for reasons you suggest, but we’re working toward it.”
The day ended with a conversation between Altman and Ive, both of whom I’d never seen in person before. Sitting side by side, they come across as a thoughtful, deeply optimistic pair. And I thought about how the goal in the end is still something that, for OpenAI, for all its dominance, is a way off—a quiet, pervasive, long-term infrastructural place in society.
“If the solution is clever, it should just work,” said Ive, echoing the famous Apple design mantra, a paradigm that also applies to companies. “It should seem inevitable, as if there wasn’t possibly another rational solution to the problem.”
Term Sheet Podcast… On Monday, I sat down with OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap at the company’s DevDay in San Francisco to discuss where the company stands in the enterprise market, his thoughts on the “AI bubble,” that MIT study, his startup background, and more. Listen and watch here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X:@agarfinks
Email:alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Affinia Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass.-based drug developer for cardiovascular and neurological diseases, raised $40 million in Series C funding. NewEnterpriseAssociates led the round and was joined by EliLilly and existing investors.
- LumenBioscience, a Seattle, Wash.-based developer of orally-delivered biologics, raised $30 million in a Series C extension. WestRiverGroup led the round and was joined by the GatesFoundation and others.
- AeroRXTherapeutics, a La Jolla, Calif.-based drug developer for chronic respiratory diseases, raised $21 million in Series A funding. AvalonBioVentures led the round and was joined by CorrelationVentures, AlexandriaVentureInvestments, and others.
- Membrion, a Seattle, Wash.-based developer of adaptive water infrastructure, raised $20 million in Series B1 funding from PangaeaVentures, PureTerraVentures, and others.
- Energy Robotics, a Darmstadt, Germany-based developer of robots and drones for autonomous inspection of critical infrastructure, raised $13.5 million in Series A funding. BlueBearCapital and ClimateInvestment led the round and was joined by FuturyCapital, HessenCapital, KenshoVC, and TADTech.
- Zingage, a New York City-based AI-powered automation platform for home health care agencies, raised $12.5 million in seed funding. BessemerVenturePartners led the round and was joined by TQVentures, SouthParkCommons, and others.
- Arcjet, a San Francisco-based codebase security platform, raised $8.3 million in Series A funding. Plural and OttKauver led the round and was joined by AndreessenHorowitz, Seedcamp, and angel investors.
- Datamonk, an Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based developer of AI technology for transferring medical image data, raised $1.9 million in pre-seed funding. Healthy.Capital and NinaCapital led the round and were joined by angel investors.
Private Equity
- Vistara invested $12 million in Authentic8, a Redwood City, Calif.-based cybersecurity company.
- BishopStreetUnderwriters, a portfolio company of RedBirdCapitalPartners, acquired Avid Insurance, a London, U.K.-based insurance company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- CommonwealthElectricalTechnologies, backed by BroadSkyPartners, acquired NuWaveEnergySolutions, a Norwell, Mass.-based energy efficiency and renewable energy company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- GenNx360CapitalPartners agreed to acquire Heartland BusinessSolutions, a Little Chute, Wisc.-based IT services company, from A&MCapital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Funds + Funds of Funds
- Northlane Capital Partners, a Bethesda, M.D.-based private equity firm, raised $750 million for its third fund focused on health care and business services companies.
People
- BayPine, a Boston, Mass.-based private equity firm, hired AmyHarsch as partner, head of capital formation and investor relations. Previously, she was with AmericanSecurities.
- Permira, a London, U.K.-based private equity firm, hired CaitlinBrodie as a managing director in its U.S. Capital Formation team. Previously, she was with The Carlyle Group.