Meta Platforms (META) is reportedly planning to raise up to $29 billion to fuel its artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions and continues poaching top talent from OpenAI. According to The Financial Times, Meta is in talks with private equity firms to raise $3 billion in equity financing and an additional $26 billion in debt. At the same time, The Information reported that Meta has hired four more OpenAI researchers to bolster its AI efforts.
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Meta Aims to Raise $29B to Power AI Ambitions
According to reports, Meta is in discussions with major private lenders, including Apollo Global Management (APO), KKR & Co. (KKR), Carlyle Group (CG), and PIMCO, for $29 billion in funding. The parties are discussing how to structure the debt issuance so that it can become easily tradeable once issued. A person familiar with the matter said that Meta could look to raise more capital going forward.
Meta and other Big Tech companies are racing to capture a larger share of the AI market. Meta, in particular, has lagged behind its peers in the generative AI space, despite developing its own models called Llama. Recently, Meta announced a $14.3 billion investment in AI data-labeling startup, Scale AI, and has also tapped its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead its Superintelligence team. Notably, the company plans to invest up to $72 billion in capex this year to accelerate its AI data center and infrastructure efforts. Moreover, Meta has partnered with nuclear power and geothermal plants to supply clean energy for its data centers.
Meta Continues its Talent Poaching Spree
The Instagram parent company is going all-in on its AI ambitions, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally conducting interviews and overseeing hirings for the Superintelligence team. Interestingly, four more research executives have been lured by Meta’s multi-million-dollar compensation offers and have agreed to join the company.
Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, and Hongyu Ren are the latest individuals to ditch the ChatGPT maker and join Meta. Yu was head of OpenAI’s Perception team, while the others were key researchers at the AI startup. This latest hiring follows last week’s addition of Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, all of whom were working in OpenAI’s Zurich office. Meanwhile, OpenAI has acquired the full team from Crossing Minds, a startup that has raised $13.5 million in funding to build AI recommendation tools for online shopping platforms.
Is META a Good Stock to Invest In?
On TipRanks, META stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 42 Buys, three Holds, and one Sell rating. Also, the average Meta Platforms price target of $720.24 implies 1.8% downside potential from current levels. Year-to-date, META stock has gained 25.5%.
