Rain at one level has claimed to buyers that it has held superior talks to promote programs to Google, Oracle, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. Microsoft declined to remark, and the opposite corporations didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Safety Fears
The funding spherical led by Prosperity7 introduced final 12 months introduced Rain’s whole funding to $33 million as of April 2022. That was sufficient to function by means of early 2025 and valued the corporate at $90 million excluding the brand new money raised, in response to the disclosures to buyers. The paperwork cited Altman’s private funding and Rain’s letter of intent with OpenAI as causes to again the corporate.
In a Rain press launch for the fundraise final 12 months, Altman applauded the startup for taping out a prototype in 2021 and stated it “might vastly scale back the prices of making highly effective AI fashions and can hopefully sooner or later assist to allow true synthetic basic intelligence.”
Prosperity7’s funding in Rain drew the curiosity of the interagency Committee on Overseas Funding in america, which has the facility to scuttle offers deemed to threaten nationwide safety.
CFIUS, because the committee is understood, has lengthy been involved about China having access to superior US semiconductors, and has grown more and more nervous about China utilizing intermediaries within the Center East to quietly study extra about vital expertise, says Nevena Simidjiyska, a accomplice on the legislation agency Fox Rothschild who helps shoppers with CFIUS opinions. “The federal government doesn’t care concerning the cash,” she says. “It cares about entry and management and the facility of the overseas occasion.”
Rain acquired a small seed funding from the enterprise unit of Chinese language search engine Baidu apparently with out issues however the bigger Saudi funding attracted important issues. Prosperity7, a unit of Aramco Ventures, which is a part of state-owned Saudi Aramco, presumably might have let the oil big and different massive corporations within the Center East to grow to be clients but additionally put Rain into shut contact with the Saudi authorities.
Megan Apper, a spokesperson for CFIUS, says the panel is “dedicated to taking all crucial actions inside its authority to safeguard U.S. nationwide safety” however that “in line with legislation and observe, CFIUS doesn’t publicly touch upon transactions that it might or is probably not reviewing.”
Knowledge disclosed by CFIUS reveals it opinions tons of of offers yearly and within the few instances the place it has issues sometimes works out safeguards, reminiscent of barring a overseas investor from taking a board seat. It couldn’t be realized why the committee required full divestment from Rain.
Three attorneys who often work on delicate offers say they may not recall any earlier Saudi Arabian offers totally blocked by CFIUS. “Divestment itself has been fairly uncommon over the previous 20 years and has largely been a treatment reserved for Chinese language buyers,” says Luciano Racco, cochair of the worldwide commerce and nationwide safety observe at legislation agency Foley Hoag.
OpenAI probably wants to seek out companions with deep-pocketed backers whether it is to achieve some management over its {hardware} wants. Opponents Amazon and Google have spent years creating their personal customized chips for AI tasks and might fund them with income from their profitable core companies. Altman has refused to rule out OpenAI making its personal chips, however that too would require important funding.
