By Krystal Hu and Akash Sriram
(Reuters) – Microsoft-backed OpenAI has acquired search and database analytics startup Rockset to enhance its enterprise products, including the ChatGPT maker said on Friday.
The companies did not disclose the deal size. OpenAI used its shares to acquire Rockset in a stock deal that valued the company at a few hundred million, making it one of its largest acquisitions by the fast-rising AI lab, according to sources familiar with the matter.
OpenAI declined to comment on specific deal details. The company was last valued at $86 billion in a tender offer by investors earlier this year.
Rockset, founded by former engineers at Meta (NASDAQ:), specializes in real-time search and analytics databases, benefiting from the application of artificial intelligence in areas such as chatbots and anomaly detection.
Backed by Greylock, Sequoia, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:)’s venture capital arm, Rockset announced last year that it had raised $105 million in total funding.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Rockset’s team will join OpenAI, with its technology enhancing the retrieval infrastructure of the ChatGPT maker’s enterprise products.
This partnership means that Rockset’s expertise in real-time data processing and vector search will improve OpenAI’s ability to quickly access and analyze vast amounts of information, leading to faster and more accurate responses from AI models. OpenAI aims to provide enterprises with tools for rapid indexing and searching within their data.
CONTEXT
OpenAI is expanding its offerings following the success of its consumer-facing product, ChatGPT, and is now pitching ChatGPT Enterprise, the enterprise version of its chatbot and AI services known as APIs, to executives at large enterprises.
OpenAI is also incorporating new functionalities in ChatGPT and developing new AI models to compete with the likes of Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google and Anthropic, among other companies.
Reuters reported last month that OpenAI is working on a search engine product to potentially rival Google and AI search startup Perplexity.
