{"id":18859,"date":"2025-09-12T22:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T22:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18859\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T22:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T22:22:06","slug":"openai-announces-new-mentorship-program-for-budding-tech-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18859\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI announces new mentorship program for budding tech founders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OpenAI on Friday <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/openai-grove\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">introduced a new program<\/a>, dubbed the &#8220;OpenAI Grove,&#8221; for early tech entrepreneurs looking to build with artificial intelligence, and applications are already open.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike OpenAI&#8217;s Pioneer Program, which <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/openai-pioneers-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">launched in April<\/a>, Grove is aimed towards individuals at the very nascent phases of their company development, from the pre-idea to pre-seed stage.<\/p>\n<p>For five weeks, participants will receive mentoring from OpenAI technical leaders, early access to new tools and models, and in-person workshops, located in the company&#8217;s San Francisco headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Roughly 15 members will join Grove&#8217;s first cohort, which will run from Oct. 20 to Nov. 21, 2025. Applicants will have until Sept. 24 to submit an entry form.<\/p>\n<p>CNBC has reached out to OpenAI for comment on the program.<\/p>\n<p>Following the program, Grove participants will be able to continue working internally with the ChatGPT maker, which was recent valued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/08\/15\/openai-6-billion-stock-500-billion-valuation.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$500 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Other industry rivals have also already launched their own AI accelerator programs, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/GOOGL\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/outreach-initiatives\/entrepreneurs\/apply-cloud-ai-accelerator-north-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> for Startups Cloud AI Accelerator<\/a> last winter. Earlier this April, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/MSFT\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft<\/a> for Startups <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/microsoft-for-startups-and-pearx-accelerator-seeks-ai-startups-for-next-cohort\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">partnered with PearlX<\/a>, a cohort accelerator program for pre-seed companies.<\/p>\n<p>Nurturing these budding AI companies is just a small chip in the recent massive investments into AI firms, which ate up an impressive 71% of U.S. venture funding in 2025, up from 45% last year, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/am.jpmorgan.com\/content\/dam\/jpm-am-aem\/global\/en\/insights\/market-insights\/guide-to-alternatives\/mi-guide-to-alternatives-us.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">an analysis<\/a> from J.P. Morgan.<\/p>\n<p>AI startups <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/07\/22\/ai-startups-raised-104-billion-in-first-half-exits-different-story.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">raised $104.3 billion<\/a> in the U.S. in the first half of this year, and currently over 1,300 AI startups have valuations of over $100 million, according to CB Insights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI on Friday introduced a new program, dubbed the &#8220;OpenAI Grove,&#8221; for early tech entrepreneurs looking to build&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,2709,363,364,553,5741,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-18859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alphabet-class-a","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-microsoft-corp","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}