OpenAI Nears $30 Billion Round at $1.25 Trillion After Pitching $1.4 Trillion

On Thursday, Oct. 22, OpenAI told investors it wants signatures by the end of next week. The ChatGPT maker is raising up to $30 billion, with investors from the United Arab Emirates and the investment firm Coatue leading. The round is being positioned as an "opportunistic" bridge, money to carry the company until a public offering. OpenAI filed its IPO prospectus confidentially in June and has not said when it will list.

The round would value OpenAI at $1.25 trillion, below the roughly $1.4 trillion the company had discussed with backers earlier in October.

The round would set a private price for OpenAI weeks before its chief rival, Anthropic, is expected to list. It also arrives two weeks after OpenAI's own net revenue figure of roughly $50 billion came in well below the $68 billion gross figure that had been widely reported.

The price

The gap between the two numbers is $150 billion. Both are pre-money valuations, which is the price set on the company before the new cash goes in. If the full $30 billion comes in, the post-money valuation would be $1.28 trillion.

In September, investors approached OpenAI with proposals and floated $1.2 trillion, and some pitched the round as a way for employees to sell stock. In late September, talks at about $30 billion and $1.4 trillion were first reported, and earlier in October OpenAI presented $1.4 trillion pre-money to prospective backers that included BlackRock and MGX. Now the figure is $1.25 trillion. By Oct. 19, existing backers SoftBank and Abu Dhabi's MGX were in talks to join, and people familiar with the talks said the round was "expected to move faster than is typical for an offering of its size," with the aim of closing before Anthropic's expected mid-November listing.

In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with investors including Amazon, SoftBank and Nvidia, and Amazon committing up to $50 billion. In August, the company ran a secondary share sale of roughly $7 billion that let employees cash out part of their holdings. A $1.28 trillion post-money valuation would be about $430 billion above March's $852 billion post-money mark.

Alongside the equity, OpenAI is negotiating a commercial deal that would secure more computing capacity from the UAE, one person said. In February, OpenAI told investors it was targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030. Nvidia has said OpenAI's existing and planned commitments represent approximately 12 gigawatts of its compute.

The round is unsigned. Its final size is still being determined, and the terms come from people familiar with the talks rather than from OpenAI, which declined to comment. The revenue figures are the company's own and unaudited.

The revenue figure

OpenAI told investors it generated $6.7 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2026, up 18% from the first, and its annualized run rate topped $40 billion by August.

On Oct. 8, it emerged that OpenAI had told investors its annualized revenue was roughly $50 billion at the end of September. A figure of $68 billion had been widely reported in late September.

The two numbers count different things. OpenAI books sales after subtracting the share kept by partners, which is net revenue. The $68 billion figure included gross revenue from those partners, a person familiar with the matter said, and it was meant to allow a direct comparison with Anthropic, whose figures count the gross.

The two companies also disagree over how revenue is counted. OpenAI has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by counting the full value of contracts sold through cloud providers. Anthropic says it follows established accounting practices.

OpenAI's investor presentation also cited 77% total run-rate growth in the third quarter and 107% run-rate growth for its enterprise business. One person said OpenAI expects $70 billion in annualized revenue by year end.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25% on Oct. 8, its worst day since mid-August. Nvidia fell about 3%, Oracle nearly 6% and CoreWeave nearly 8%. The declines accelerated after the figure was reported midday.

Ross Mayfield is an investment strategist at Baird. "There are going to be tremors throughout all of the related sub-industries," he said. Tech and AI stocks had carried the market in recent weeks while other sectors struggled under rising bond yields. "This has become a much narrower market that's dependent on the AI names to keep it afloat," Mayfield said.

Anthropic's listing

Anthropic confidentially filed its prospectus in June. In May it closed a $65 billion round at a $965 billion valuation, which put it above OpenAI's $852 billion mark from March. It is now reportedly seeking a valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in its offering. Its annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July, the company told investors in August.

Anthropic told investors its third-quarter revenue rose to $16.8 billion from $11.6 billion in the second quarter. After those results fell short of expectations, some investors argued for a debut valuation near $1.5 trillion rather than the $2 trillion Anthropic wants. New Constructs, an independent research firm, called the offering the "most ridiculous IPO of 2026" and valued Anthropic at $150 billion.

Both companies are calling on the same buyers. Only a short list of sovereign wealth funds and long-only funds can write checks this large. OpenAI met such funds the week before Oct. 19, while Anthropic held its own investor day.

Edward Best is a capital markets lawyer at Willkie Farr & Gallagher who is not involved in either deal. "It's really a two-horse race in terms of being public," he said.

The 2027 plan

Two OpenAI executives have spoken to the timetable. Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer, addressed employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 19, with slides on screen showing the revenue run rate up 35% quarter to date and the enterprise run rate up 50%. She said OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027," or sooner if "our business continues to inflect." She framed the offering as a step rather than an end. "The IPO is not a finish line, it is a milestone, another fundraise," Friar said.

She also raised the possibility that Anthropic would list first. "There is a chance they pull the cover off that confidential file in the coming weeks and become public in September. That's OK, we are running our own race," she said.

Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, addressed the question in an interview published Sept. 12, about three and a half weeks later. Citing concerns about AI safety, he said "right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public." The interview pushed any listing to at least 2027.

The same day, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay urging AI companies to pace how quickly they improve their most advanced models. Altman and Elon Musk both backed the proposal in social media posts. The essay followed an Anthropic researcher's resignation earlier that week. He said he left out of concern that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."

On Sept. 15, three days after Altman's interview, Friar said in a televised interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, "We still have an incredible balance sheet."

The next date is OpenAI's target for securing signatures, the end of next week. Anthropic's expected listing follows in mid-November.

OpenAI Puts Revenue Run Rate Near $50 Billion, Sets $70 Billion Year-End Target

OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was about $50 billion at the end of September and expects to reach $70 billion or more by year-end. The nearly $70 billion figure that circulated in late S

The Implicator

TypeSafe AI Raises $870 Million for Jev as OpenAI, Amazon and Cloudflare Ship Rivals

TypeSafe AI announced an $870 million Series A on Friday to expand Jev, its decision model for software. The Andreessen Horowitz-led financing values the company at $7.5 billion. The funding follows J

The Implicator

Positron Raises $875 Million at $5 Billion Before Its Asimov Chip Tapes Out

Positron AI raised $875 million at a $5 billion post-money valuation on Sept. 10, 2026, to take its Asimov inference chip to tapeout and production. The valuation is nearly five times the $1 billion i

The Implicator

Marcus Schuler

San Francisco

Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: editor@implicator.ai