The PR team at OpenAI tells me that despite the intrigue surrounding the company’s palace, the AI startup and its co-branded accelerator programs are continuing to grow.
Converge-2 is the second cohort of the six-week Converge program for “exceptional engineers, designers, researchers, and product builders using AI to reimagine the world,” as described by the company in a blog post published this morning. To be clear, OpenAI Startup Fund does not count OpenAI as an investor; it is a very confusingly separate entity.
The ten to fifteen companies selected for Converge-2 will receive a $1 million equity investment from the OpenAI Startup Fund, the $100 million+ entrepreneurial tranche announced in May and supported by Microsoft and other OpenAI Startup Fund partners, just like the startups in the first Converge cohort. If you do the math, that represents an investment in the Converge-2 program of at least $10 million, which is not a small sum of money.
According to the blog post, Converge-2 participants will receive not only the capital but also access to office hours, tech talks, social events, and discussions with “leading practitioners” and the OpenAI Startup Fund’s “community of builders.” The OpenAI Startup Fund emphasizes that the program is “for anyone building or aspiring to build with AI,” which is significant, even though it is expected that the network effects will make OpenAI’s technologies incredibly alluring. Nevertheless, they won’t be compelled to build on top of the company’s APIs.
Founders with varying backgrounds, specializations, and levels of experience are welcome to apply to the OpenAI Startup Fund, even if they are located outside of the United States. It’s not necessary to have prior experience working with AI systems. However, the OpenAI Startup Fund will mandate that the startups chosen for the program commit a minimum of four to six hours per week from March 11 to April 19, with the first and last weeks of the program being held in San Francisco (travel expenses will be covered by the OpenAI Startup Fund).