OpenAI is getting serious about selling AI to big business — so serious it's spinning off a whole new company to do the dirty work. The ChatGPT maker today announced the OpenAI Deployment Company, a separately incorporated entity that will embed engineers inside client organizations to integrate AI models with existing data, permissions, compliance systems, and business processes. The new venture has raised over $4 billion in its first funding round, putting its valuation at $10 billion (excluding the capital raised). Former COO Brad Lightcap will run the operation.
Nineteen investors are on board, spanning private equity, investment banks, and consulting giants. TPG is the anchor investor, with Advent, Bain Capital, Brookfield, SoftBank Corp., and Dragoneer among the PE backers. Goldman Sachs also participated. Consulting firms McKinsey and Capgemini will bring their client networks — collectively covering more than 2,000 portfolio companies and clients, according to OpenAI.
To staff up, OpenAI is also acquiring British AI consultancy Tomoro. Founded in 2023, Tomoro has already helped deploy AI systems for Tesco, Virgin Atlantic, and Supercell as an OpenAI alliance partner. The acquisition will bring roughly 150 deployment engineers to the new company.
The operation follows a Palantir-style "forward deployed engineering" model: identify a client's highest-value AI use cases, pick a small number of critical processes, and build production-grade applications that plug models into internal systems. OpenAI's website touts two early wins: it helped Spanish bank BBVA roll out AI to 120,000 employees across 25 countries, and worked with agricultural equipment giant John Deere to recommend AI-powered spraying plans during planting season, cutting customers' chemical use by up to 70%.
Expect more acquisitions — OpenAI says the fresh capital will also fund further purchases of companies that can speed up enterprise deployments. Back on May 6, this channel reported that OpenAI already had three late-stage acquisitions in the pipeline. Rival Anthropic is also raising around $1.5 billion for a similar push.