The parties carried on the transaction on the ground of a post-money value of 300 billion for ChatGPT, the same as the 40 billion investment that the firm attracted from Softbank in April
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT that Sam Altman founded, said it acquired the scaleup io Products from the founder Jony Ive, an Apple’s alumnus that designed the first iPhone models and that will now join the buyer as creative director for the generative AI-based devices (video of the announcement). Reuters quoted rumours as saying that the parties carried on a 6.5 billion US Dollars shares swap deal on the ground of OpenAI’s 300 billion value which is the same as the figure for the 40 billion investment that Japan’s Softbank subscribed in April 2025 (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
In 4Q24, OpenAI acquired a 23% of io Products. Bloomberg reported that Ive’s company also attracted the investment of Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective, Sutter Hill Ventures, Thrive Capital, Maverick Ventures, SV Angel, and OpenAI’s venture fund.
In 2019, Ive left Apple and founded the design firm LoveFrom that previously started to collaborate with OpenAI for the development of generative AI-based devices.
Ive worked with Apple’s founder Steve Jobs and designed the look and functionality of the modern smartphone, as well as the iPod, MacBook, iPad and Apple Watch.
Altman said “AI is incredible. However, valuable tools require work at the intersection of technology, design and understanding of people and the world. Nobody can do it like Jony [Ive] and his team; their accuracy for every aspect of the process is extraordinary”.
