OpenAI buys a platform for working together remotely

OpenAI bought Multi, a startup that focuses on enterprise video collaboration. This is part of OpenAI’s recent plan to offer more enterprise solutions, which started with its purchase of Rockset, a database technology company.

OpenAI has bought Multi (formerly Remotion), a startup making an enterprise-focused, video-first collaboration platform. This comes just a few days after the purchase of database tech company Rockset.

According to a person familiar with the situation, the deal is an acquisition, and most of Multi’s team, or about five people, will join OpenAI after the deal closes.

Alex Embiricos, CEO of Multi and one of its founders, says the company will shut down on July 24, 2024.

It was a huge deal that Multi was joining OpenAI, as he said in a blog post on Multi’s page. “Thank you to everyone who used Multi.” We had a great time building with you and learned a lot.

Embiricos, who used to be a product manager at Dropbox, and Charley Ho, who co-founded Multi and used to be a software engineer at Google, set out to make a Zoom-based platform to let teams working from different places work together through video chats.

Multi boasts features such as enabling up to 10 users to share their screens simultaneously and collaborate, along with automatically created customizable shortcuts and deep links for code, designs, and documents.

Before today’s exit, Multi received $13 million in cash from venture capitalists like Greylock and First Round Capital, according to the report.

OpenAI’s Enterprise Strategy

The Multi deal seems to fit in with OpenAI’s recent strategy of putting a lot of money into enterprise solutions, just like the Rockset deal.

OpenAI recently said that 93% of all Fortune 500 companies were among the close to 600,000 users at the corporate level of ChatGPT, its popular AI-powered chatbot platform.

The two companies agreed in May to let other companies buy OpenAI’s tools. The company added a custom AI model tuning and consulting service the month before.

The Information predicts that OpenAI will earn more than $3.4 billion this year, demonstrating the effectiveness of the business appeals.

OpenAI has also made other products aimed at businesses. Could we potentially witness an improved ChatGPT in the future, suitable for videoconferencing and remote collaboration? Perhaps. I wouldn’t rule it out, especially since the time between OpenAI’s best models is getting longer.