Khosla Ventures has raised $405 million for OpenAI, according to a regulatory filing.
Based on the filing alone, Khosla's stake in the ChatGPT maker appears to represent at least 6% of the $6.6 billion round the company closed last week. But that doesn't mean Khosla put a lot of capital into this round. Most, or perhaps all, of the $405 million was pooled from other investors through a special purpose vehicle, or SPV.
SPVs are used when a company does not have enough capital to meet a round, or when there is enough exposure to the company to offer its allocation to other companies looking for equity.
Khosla Ventures declined to comment, so it's unclear the terms of participation in OpenAI's final round, which valued the company at $157 billion. In any case, OpenAI is in good hands with Khosla Ventures, which invested $50 million in the company in 2019, and The Information subsequently reported a 5% ownership stake. OpenAI's valuation at the time was not made public, but it was likely significantly lower than the $29 billion valuation it reportedly received in 2023, when Microsoft invested $10 billion.