OpenAI Takes Strategic Stake in Thrive Holdings in Latest Circular Investment Deal

OpenAI's investment into Thrive Holdings is its latest circular deal | TechCrunch

OpenAI is taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, whose parent company is one of the AI giant's major investors, Thrive Capital. Thrive Holdings operates like a private equity firm for AI, rolling up companies that it believes could benefit from the tech in sectors like accounting and IT services. Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal, but it will involve OpenAI embedding engineering, research, and product teams within Thrive's companies to accelerate AI adoption and boost efficiency, the company says. If those companies succeed, OpenAI's stake will grow, and it will get compensated for its services, according to reporting from CNBC. The partnership follows a pattern of circular dealmaking for the $500 billion AI giant, which also recently took stakes in infrastructure partners like Advanced Micro Devices and CoreWeave. Analysts will be watching to see if Thrive-owned firms actually succeed in building long-term profitable businesses using OpenAI's tech, or if the result is really just pumped-up valuations based on speculative market potential.

OpenAI just made another circular deal

OpenAI announced an ownership stake in the private equity investment firm Thrive Holdings, whose parent company, Thrive Capital, is one of the main investors in, you guessed it, OpenAI. While OpenAI did not spend money on the ownership stake, according to an anonymous source cited by The Financial Times, the company announced it would provide Thrive Holdings' companies with employees, models, products, and services. OpenAI may also get payouts from Thrive Holdings' future returns, the FT wrote, citing its anonymous source. It's the latest circular deal in an industry known for running on FOMO and handing money back-and-forth between a small group of companies. The partnership will focus on the two sectors at the top of Thrive Holdings' priority list: IT services and accounting. It's in these "high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes where OpenAI's platform can drive immediate benefits," according to the announcement release. The stated goal is to use AI to "boost speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency while strengthening service quality." Joshua Kushner, CEO of Thrive Holding and Capital, and the younger brother of President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said AI is unlike past technologies that have changed industries "from the outside in." "We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields," Kushner said. Trump himself is a staunch booster of AI, and officials in his administration -- like David Sacks -- stand to benefit from the industry's growth. Thrive Holdings' purpose for acquiring IT services and accounting is to "transform them using AI," the FT wrote. As part of the deal with OpenAI, the startup will get access to data from Thrive Holdings' companies for AI model training. There are two potential advantages for OpenAI there: one, the possibility that it can be shoehorned into companies in Thrive Holdings' portfolio, and two, a rich new source of training data. OpenAI wants to work more broadly with the private equity industry, the anonymous source told the FT. Someone close to Thrive Capital said that OpenAI would be working as the equity group's "research arm." The Thrive deal may be the first of a new wave of similar agreements, said OpenAI's COO Brad Lightcap.

OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings, which invested in it

Thrive will use the AI-maker's tech in its managed services and accounting businesess Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. OpenAI says that it has taken an undisclosed ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, the management-focused offshoot of private equity heavyweight Thrive Capital, which itself is a major investor in the ChatGPT maker. "This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what's possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations to revolutionize how businesses work and engage with customers," Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI said, according to a canned statement that accompanied the news. Reading between the lines, OpenAI will ingratiate its products into Thrive Holdings' stable of accounting and managed service provider businesses in a bid to show how it can provide value in enterprise workflows. In June, Thrive Holdings spent $100 million to stand up an umbrella group that sells IT services under the name Shield Technology Partners, which is made up of the IT services firms ClearFuze Networks, Delval Technology Solutions, IronOrbit, and OneNet Global, according to a statement at the time. OpenAI said it plans to embed its own research, product, and engineering teams into those organizations to help automate certain processes, starting with IT services and accounting, "because these functions run high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes where OpenAI's platform can drive immediate benefits," in the words of the vendor. OpenAI says it hopes to use this initiative to create a "repeatable model" that they can then apply to other industries. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in OpenAI's Monday announcement. The Register has reached out to OpenAI and Thrive Holdings for comment and details and will update if we hear back. Thrive Holdings' parent company, Thrive Capital, has invested billions into OpenAI through multiple rounds, and was one of three leaders (alongside Dragoneer and Softbank) in the AI giant's massive $40 billion funding round in March of this year, as per Pitchbook. Thrive Holdings and Thrive Capital founder and CEO Joshua Kushner said they plan to embed OpenAI's frontier models, products, and services into business areas that can produce better results with these advances. Kushner's brother is Jared Kushner, a US foreign policy advisor who is married to President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka. ®

OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings to help accelerate enterprise AI adoption

OpenAI on Monday announced it is taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, a company that was launched by one of its major investors, Thrive Capital, in April. The startup said it will embed engineering, research and product teams within Thrive Holdings' companies to help accelerate their AI adoption and boost cost efficiency. Thrive Holdings buys, owns and runs companies that it believes could benefit from technologies like artificial intelligence. It operates in sectors that are "core to the real economy," starting with accounting and IT services, according to its website. OpenAI, which is valued at $500 billion, did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. "We are excited to extend our partnership with OpenAI to embed their frontier models, products, and services into sectors we believe have tremendous potential to benefit from technological innovation and adoption," Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings, said in a statement. It's the latest example of OpenAI's circular dealmaking. In recent months, the company has taken stakes in infrastructure partners like Advanced Micro Devices and CoreWeave.

OpenAI Takes Stake in Thrive Holdings, a Buyer of Services Firms

When Thrive Capital set up a company, Thrive Holdings, this year to buy up and consolidate services providers like accounting firms, a key goal was to transform the businesses by imbuing them with artificial intelligence. Now one of Thrive Holdings' main partners, OpenAI, is getting more deeply invested in that plan. OpenAI is expected to announce on Monday that it is taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, and that it will embed A.I. specialists at Thrive Holdings' companies, which already include an accounting business and an I.T. services one. The move comes amid the continuing rush by businesses to adopt A.I. as a competitive advantage. And for OpenAI, the hope is that working more closely with Thrive Holdings will demonstrate how companies can harness the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot -- and create buzz to entice other potential customers. "What we're trying to do with this partnership is really prove out ways that we can accelerate that type of transformation," Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, said in an interview. The search for new business comes at a crucial moment for OpenAI: The company is valued at $500 billion by investors and has committed about $1.4 trillion in infrastructure spending by 2033 -- justified by what it expects will be hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue by 2030. Its competitors are not standing still. Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot, is getting wider distribution because of partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, one of OpenAI's longtime backers. And Google has won plaudits for, and gained billions in market value on, the promise of its latest A.I. model. Yet OpenAI has been busy courting new business, something that it hopes deeper involvement with Thrive Holdings will help with. Thrive Capital created Thrive Holdings this year, with an initial $1 billion in funding. The vehicle aims to do serial deal-making -- known in financial lingo as roll-ups -- in relatively humdrum industries that it says would benefit from A.I., a strategy that other venture capital firms have embarked on. Thrive Holdings' two current operations, the accounting business Crete Professionals Alliance and the I.T. services provider Shield Technology Partners, have more than 1,000 employees in total. Thrive Holdings has committed $500 million to Crete, which the trade publication Accounting Today described this year as one of the fastest-growing accounting firms in the United States. Thrive Holdings and the investment firm ZBS Partners have committed more than $100 million in Shield, which is on track to strike 10 acquisitions by year end. But Thrive Holdings was also meant to help modernize how these companies operate, akin to what Thrive Capital and its founder, Josh Kushner, have done with the health insurer Oscar Health. (Mr. Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law.) That includes thinking about how to overhaul their business practices, and not just eke out slightly better operating margins. Crete, for example, has been working to use the technology to automate tasks such as data entry and processing tax returns to help free up accountants to work more directly with clients. "We think A.I. has the promise of making these industries much more human," Kareem Zaki, a Thrive Capital partner who also runs investment strategy at Thrive Holdings, said in an interview. Thrive Holdings was always meant to draw on the expertise of OpenAI, in which Thrive Capital has been a prominent backer. Now the A.I. giant is expected to embed researchers and engineers in Thrive Holdings' companies. And OpenAI will help to create customized models for Crete and Shield, according to Anuj Mehndiratta, a partner at Thrive Capital who oversees product and technology strategy at Thrive Holdings. After Thrive Holdings was created, Mr. Lightcap and Mr. Kushner started talking about how to better make A.I. a core technology for fast-growing companies. Those conversations led to OpenAI's taking an ownership stake, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions. (Financial details of the arrangement were not immediately available.) "We think the impact A.I. has in businesses and in the enterprise is going to be actually transformative," Mr. Lightcap said. "That could happen on a near-term timeline. And we're trying to figure out how to kind of make that happen as fast as we can."

OpenAI Takes Equity Stake in Thrive Holdings | AIM

The partnership will involve training advanced AI models for specific tasks within Holding's businesses, "guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback," said Joshua Kushner, founder at Thrive Capital. OpenAI, the AI giant and the maker of ChatGPT, has entered into a new partnership with Thrive Holdings (Holdings). As part of the deal, OpenAI will take an equity stake in Holdings, aiming to bring frontier AI into sectors and industries that work on legacy workflows and systems that have barely changed in decades. "The partnership will bring together a unique, cross-functional team, comprising OpenAI's leading research and applied AI teams working alongside engineers, operators, and industry experts at Holdings to deeply integrate AI into the businesses that we own and operate," said Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital, in a post on X. The partnership will involve training advanced AI models for specific tasks within Holding's businesses, "guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback," added Kushner. Other financial details of the partnership were not revealed at the time of the announcement. "OpenAI now has equity and train models for tasks with company-specific data," said Sheel Mohnot, a general partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, in a post on X. Many others also expressed a similar reaction to the partnership, possibly opening up more avenues of training OpenAI's models. Holdings is a holding company created by Thrive Capital in 2025, designed to acquire and operate businesses in traditional service sectors such as accounting and IT. And Thrive Capital, the New York-based venture capital firm founded in 2009, has backed several high-profile technology companies and is also an established investor in OpenAI. In 2024, the VC firm led a major $6.6 billion funding round in OpenAI, committing roughly $1 billion. As of the most recent reports around the share sale of OpenAI employee stock, Thrive was among the firms that bought shares -- a deal that reportedly helped push OpenAI's post-money valuation to around $500 billion. This has raised fresh questions about the circular nature of the arrangement.

OpenAI is trading services for a stake in Thrive Holdings

OpenAI has solidified its symbiotic relationship with its primary backer, securing an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings through a cashless, resource-based transaction. Rather than deploying capital, the AI giant will deploy "sweat equity" -- supplying employees, proprietary models, and technical services to Thrive's portfolio companies. According to an anonymous source cited by The Financial Times, this unique structure effectively positions OpenAI as the dedicated "research arm" of the private equity firm, creating a closed-loop ecosystem where the startup gains equity in the very entity that finances it. The partnership is surgically targeted at two sectors deemed ripe for automation: IT services and accounting. These industries are characterized by "high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes," making them ideal testing grounds for OpenAI's platform to drive immediate cost efficiencies. By integrating directly into these operational backbones, OpenAI aims to extract efficiency gains while simultaneously harvesting a critical resource: proprietary enterprise data. This access addresses a looming bottleneck for AI development, granting OpenAI a fresh stream of real-world, domain-specific information to refine its next generation of models. Joshua Kushner, CEO of Thrive and brother to Jared Kushner, framed the strategy as a paradigm shift occurring "from the inside out," contrasting it with previous technological disruptions that attacked incumbents externally. This philosophy aligns with the broader political landscape, where administration officials -- such as David Sacks -- stand to benefit from the industry's unchecked growth. OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap indicated this arrangement may be the "first of a new wave" of similar agreements, suggesting a future where AI companies don't just sell software to industries but structurally integrate into the private equity firms that own them.

OpenAI acquires stake in Thrive Holdings; eyes driving enterprise AI adoption - The Economic Times

Following the stake buy, OpenAI's research, product, and engineering teams will be embedded into the portfolio companies of the New York-based investment vehicle of Thrive Capital. Accounting and IT functions will be the first to be automated.OpenAI has acquired a stake in Thrive Holdings, the New York-based investment vehicle of Thrive Capital, the two companies confirmed in separate statements on Monday. "Through our partnership, OpenAI will become an equity owner in Holdings, and collectively we will set out to deliver frontier technology for our customers," Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital, wrote on X. As part of the collaboration, OpenAI's research, product, and engineering teams will be embedded into Thrive Holdings' portfolio companies. The company noted that early efforts will centre on accounting and IT functions. "OpenAI and Thrive Holdings will work together to drive direct, scalable impact across core enterprise operations. The initial focus is accounting and IT services because these functions run high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes where OpenAI's platform can drive immediate benefits," the Sam Altman-led company said. The partnership has made OpenAI an equity stakeholder in Thrive Holdings, a move the company said is aimed at integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into businesses. In October, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI was valued at $500 billion, after current and former employees sold roughly $6.6 billion worth of its shares. The OpenAI employees sold shares to a consortium of investors, including Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi's MGX, and T. OpenAI generated around $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025, about 16% more than it generated all of last year. Meanwhile, ChatGPT, the world's most popular AI chatbot, has completed three years at a time when rising competition is intensifying, and its parent company is reshaping itself for the next phase of growth. With the shift to a for-profit structure, OpenAI expects a larger share of its user base to pay for premium access. According to OpenAI's projections, by 2030, roughly 220 million users will subscribe. As of July, about 35 million users -- nearly 5% of ChatGPT's weekly active base -- paid for "Plus" or "Pro" plans.

OpenAI Launches Partnerships With Thrive and Accenture | PYMNTS.com

Their initial focus will be on accounting and IT services, where OpenAI's platform can drive immediate benefits, according to a Monday (Dec. 1) announcement. "AI is redefining how enterprises are built and deliver value for customers," OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap said in the announcement. "This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what's possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations to revolutionize how businesses work and engage with customers." The collaboration will see OpenAI embed research, product and engineering teams within Thrive Holdings' companies "to boost speed, accuracy and cost efficiency while strengthening service quality" and "establish a repeatable model that can expand across other industries," the announcement said. "Historically, technology transformed industries from the outside in," Thrive CEO and founder Joshua Kushner said in the announcement. "We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields. The businesses we acquire represent the right reward systems for this evolution, bringing together industry expertise and real-world data that can help improve models on specific tasks and capabilities." The partnership is the latest in a series of OpenAI deals that have drawn criticism for their circular aspect. For example, Nvidia has said it would invest up to $100 billion to help fund OpenAI's data centers, while OpenAI agreed to purchase millions of Nvidia chips to power those centers. Also Monday, OpenAI announced separately a partnership with professional services company Accenture that will see Accenture equip tens of thousands of its professionals with ChatGPT Enterprise. "By embedding OpenAI technology and practices in Accenture's consulting, operations and delivery work, Accenture will apply its learnings and experiences to helping clients scale their own adoption," the second announcement said.

OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings to boost enterprise AI adoption By Investing.com

Investing.com -- OpenAI announced a partnership with Thrive Holdings aimed at accelerating enterprise AI adoption, with the AI company taking an ownership stake in Thrive. The collaboration will focus initially on accounting and IT services, targeting high-volume, rules-driven processes where OpenAI's technology can deliver immediate benefits. OpenAI plans to embed its research, product, and engineering teams within Thrive Holdings' companies to improve speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency. "AI is redefining how enterprises are built and deliver value for customers," said Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI. "This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what's possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations." Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings, stated: "We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields." The deal adds to OpenAI's recent string of partnerships that have faced criticism for their circular nature. These include arrangements with Nvidia for a potential $100 billion investment and a separate multi-billion dollar chip deal with AMD that could make OpenAI a major AMD shareholder. Thrive, founded by Kushner in 2010, first invested in OpenAI in 2023 at a $27 billion valuation and later led a $6.6 billion investment that valued the AI company at $157 billion. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings in latest enterprise AI push

Dec 1 (Reuters) - ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has taken a stake in Thrive Holdings as part of a partnership to embed artificial intelligence into traditional industries such as accounting and IT services, the companies said on Monday. OpenAI will work with Thrive's industry specialists to integrate its technology into business processes that remain largely manual and fragmented. As part of the non-monetary deal, OpenAI will provide a dedicated research team and resources in return for an ownership interest in Thrive Holdings. The move deepens the interweaving financial and business ties between OpenAI and Thrive Capital, one of its largest financial backers, which has invested several billion dollars into the AI lab. OpenAI has been trying to build on the success of ChatGPT to access more enterprises amid recent concerns about overpromising AI adoptions. Thrive Holdings is a vehicle created by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital to focus on buying traditional businesses in an AI-roll up play. Founded this year, the firm has raised over $1 billion to acquire service providers across the country, such as accounting and IT firms, aiming to overhaul their operations using AI to boost efficiency. Anuj Mehndiratta, partner at Thrive Capital who oversees Thrive Holdings, said the deal was necessary after it ran into "research problems much sooner" while deploying AI models. The firm found that "off-the-shelf" solutions were insufficient for complex, domain-specific tasks in its portfolio companies. The collaboration will focus on AI application in professional services, particularly through reinforcement learning. This research technique uses feedback from domain experts to continuously train and improve the AI models for highly specialized functions. Thrive Holdings will own the intellectual property and products created through the joint effort. OpenAI, in addition to its equity, gains insights from seeing its models tested and refined in real-world enterprise environments, which can inform its broader research, according to Mehndiratta. "We believe that aligning OpenAI through ownership is a similarly very powerful thing, where we can all kind of focus on the North Star of how do we go and build the leading products," he said in an interview. Despite being a major investor in OpenAI, Mehndiratta said the partnership doesn't exclude Thrive using other AI models, including open source ones in its business where it makes sense. Thrive Holdings says it currently serves over 10,000 customers across its accounting and IT services platforms. (Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru and Krystal Hu in San Francisco; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Lincoln Feast.)

OpenAI buys stake in Thrive Holdings to push AI into accounting, IT services

Dec 1 (Reuters) - ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has taken a stake in private equity firm Thrive Holdings as part of a partnership to embed artificial intelligence into traditional industries such as accounting and IT services, the companies said on Monday. OpenAI will work with Thrive's engineers and industry specialists to integrate its technology into business processes that remain largely manual and fragmented despite generating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Thrive, which operates in accounting and IT services, said the collaboration aims to streamline workflows and reduce complexity for employees while improving customer experience. The company plans to expand the effort to other sectors with high-volume processes and aging infrastructure. OpenAI's research and applied AI teams will help train models on company-specific data and expert feedback, creating feedback loops between research and operations to improve performance over time, the companies said. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Thrive Capital invested more than $1 billion in OpenAI in late 2024, a bet that has paid off as the ChatGPT-maker's valuation has more than tripled since then. The New York-based firm set up Thrive Holdings earlier this year to buy service providers such as accounting and IT firms, aiming to overhaul their operations using AI. (Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)