An online leak reveals OpenAI’s equity ownership structure and discloses Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher as an early investor

Artificial intelligence startup OpenAI recently completed a new round of funding totaling $122 billion, pushing its valuation up to $852 billion. After the funding news was released, a leaked document, allegedly a Cap Table (equity structure table) of the company, spread online, revealing that the venture capital firm Sound Ventures, owned by Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher, holds 0.15% of the shares. Media also found that Kutcher’s firm not only invests in OpenAI, but also invests in Anthropic, suggesting that he believes in the future of AI startups.

The equity structure table reveals OpenAI’s major shareholders

According to the leaked equity structure table, OpenAI’s largest shareholder is Microsoft, with a stake of approximately 26.79%. Next is the OpenAI Foundation, holding about 25.8% of the shares. Other major shareholders include SoftBank with about 11.66%, Amazon with about 4.66%, and NVIDIA with about 3.47%. Current and former employees combined hold about 20% of the company’s shares.

Notably, the document shows that CEO Sam Altman does not hold any direct shares in OpenAI; his stake is TBD (To Be Announce, to be announced later). This is relatively rare among tech startups.

Sound Ventures’ early investment—calculation of book returns

The leaked document indicates that Sound Ventures holds 0.15% of OpenAI’s shares. The firm invested about $30 million when OpenAI’s valuation was around $20 billion to $29 billion. If calculated using OpenAI’s valuation of $852 billion mentioned in its recent funding round, the book value of this early investment is already as high as about $1.3 billion, implying that the investment has earned roughly 43x returns on paper. What needs clarification is that the $1.3 billion is the asset value held by the fund, not entirely owned by Kutcher personally. However, as a co-founder and partner, Kutcher can obtain about 20% of profit distributions through carried interest, and he likely also invested his own money into the fund. Therefore, the success of this investment has a significant impact on the increase in his personal assets.

Ashton Kutcher’s long-term investment strategy for Silicon Valley startups

Ashton Kutcher has spent many years transitioning from a Hollywood star into a venture capitalist. As early as 2010, he co-founded A-Grade Investments with his partners, making early investments in companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Skype, and Spotify, growing the $30 million initial capital investment to about $250 million. In 2015, he founded Sound Ventures again to attract institutional investors, and in May 2023 he raised $240 million for an artificial intelligence project fund. Kutcher believes AI will be the most important technological change since the internet emerged, so he quickly deployed capital into foundational model companies such as Anthropic, StabilityAI, and OpenAI. He saw market demand before the public even became aware of AI.

In May 2023, when the market still viewed ChatGPT as an entertainment tool, Ashton Kutcher had already predicted that AI would be the most significant technological change since the internet emerged. Sound Ventures announced at the time the completion of a $240 million AI fund, which immediately invested in multiple AI companies, including Anthropic, StabilityAI, and OpenAI. Data shows that Sound Ventures entered the market when OpenAI’s valuation was around $20 billion to $29 billion; using today’s valuation of $852 billion, the investment has already achieved roughly 43x returns on paper.

OpenAI rumored to be getting ready to go public, investors continue to watch developments

The market expects OpenAI to be prepared to go public by the end of this year or early next year, at which time its valuation could challenge $1 trillion. If the IPO is successful and the valuation target is met, Sound Ventures’ share value will rise further. In addition, Kutcher has also made large investments in OpenAI’s competitor, Anthropic, and that company is also in a phase of rapid development. This means Kutcher’s AI investment portfolio includes multiple top AI companies; even if there are uncertainties in OpenAI’s development path, as long as one of them succeeds, the returns Kutcher gains from his fund could still be quite substantial.

This article leaked OpenAI’s equity structure table online and revealed Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher as an early investor; it first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.