OpenAI acquires digital products company Global Illumination for undisclosed price

AI

OpenAI LP, the company behind ChatGPT, has acquired Global Illumination Inc., a small digital company that creates “digital products” dedicated to providing incentives for creativity, for an undisclosed price.

Founded in 2021, Global Illumination is described by OpenAI as a company that has been leveraging artificial intelligence to build creative tools, infrastructure and digital experiences.

The company’s team is said to have previously designed and built products early on at Instagram and Facebook and also made significant contributions at YouTube, Google LLC, Pixar Animation Studios LLC, Riot Games Inc. and other notable companies. Global Illuminations staff will join OpenAI to work on core products, including ChatGPT.

What exactly those descriptions mean is not entirely clear. The website for the company is sparse, with the company only saying, “Global Illumination is a digital product company based in New York most recently working on Biomes.” “Biomes” is an open-source sandbox massively multiplayer online role-playing game that strongly resembles games such as “Minecraft” and those from Roblox Crop.

Presumably, unless OpenAI has a secret plan to enter the MMORPG gaming business, this is a talent acquisition — that is, one in which bigger companies acquire smaller companies for their talent versus the company and what it is building.

Global Illumination was venture capital-backed, having raised $14 million in funding, according to Pitchbook, from investors including Paradigm Capital LP, Benchmark Capital Corp. and Slow Ventures LLC. Although the acquisition price was not disclosed, it’s possible that it would have been around the figure the company had previously raised, give or take a few million dollars.

The acquisition is notable, however, as the first for OpenAI since it was founded in 2015. Whether OpenAI will now acquire more companies is open to speculation, but having raised a whopping $11.3 billion in venture capital funding to date, according to Crunchbase, the company has no shortage of money to acquire other companies as it pleases.

Image: Global Illumination