OpenAI Funding Round: $30B Raise Targets a $1.4 Trillion Valuation

OpenAI is racing to lock in roughly $30 billion in new capital at a valuation above $1.4 trillion, and the timetable is the story. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on October 19 that the ChatGPT maker wants commitments from existing backers and institutional investors before rival Anthropic's expected public market debut in mid-November. OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment; Anthropic and MGX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The valuation jump is the number to sit with. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion in March, after a record $122 billion funding round that included a commitment from Amazon.com of up to $50 billion. A new mark above $1.4 trillion would be a 64 percent increase over that March round in roughly seven months, at a moment when AI valuations are drawing the heaviest scrutiny of the year. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, the read-through proxy for AI semiconductor demand, has shed $1.6 trillion in less than two weeks, according to the same Reuters report.

Related reading: OpenAI Asks for $30 Billion at $1.4 Trillion, and the Math Behind It Does Not Close.

The two frontier labs are now tapping the same investor base within days to weeks of each other. That is the engine of the hurry. OpenAI held meetings with long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds last week, people familiar with the matter said, while Anthropic was hosting its own investor day. Some investors read OpenAI's financing push as an explicit effort to lock in capital that might otherwise go to Anthropic's IPO. One partner at a law firm not working on the deal put it bluntly in comments to Reuters: it is a two-horse race in terms of being public.

The pitch behind the round is revenue growth that OpenAI says accelerated after the launch of its GPT-6 Astra model. It told investors it had reached $50 billion in annualized revenue and expects that figure to rise to $70 billion by year-end, according to one of the people. OpenAI has also cut prices on its cheaper models, which it said boosted usage, and told investors it can lower prices further. That is the unit-economics story investors want in a choppy tape, but it is offset by the scale of the infrastructure bill the company is funding with debt and now new equity.

Related reading: Anthropic commits 5% of shares to a $100 billion public benefit fund before a $2 trillion IPO.

Anthropic is the comp that makes the dynamic uncomfortable. Its annualized revenue reached roughly $65 billion by July, Reuters previously reported, and its quarterly revenue jumped to $16.8 billion in the third quarter from $11.6 billion in the second. But slowing month-to-month revenue growth has raised concerns among investors about its valuation, and some existing and prospective Anthropic backers have argued for a debut closer to $1.5 trillion instead of the $2 trillion the company had desired, Reuters reported last week. OpenAI is seeking to finish its raise before Anthropic's financial disclosures invite comparison between the two, one person said, because the disclosures could push investors to press OpenAI's finance chief for more detail on revenue growth and outlook.

There is an accounting dispute underneath all of it. OpenAI records revenue on a net basis by subtracting partner shares upfront, and it has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by counting the full gross value of contracts sold through third-party cloud providers. Anthropic told Reuters it follows established accounting practices. For allocators deciding between the two, the difference is material to how the comparable revenue numbers are framed at the exact moment both are courting capital.

Related reading: Tenstorrent Raises $1.5B at $6.2B Valuation as AI Equity Opens While Debt Closes.

The timing is not easy. A number of companies preparing to go public have decided to wait until after Anthropic's planned IPO, wary of competing for demand amid market volatility, according to bankers and investors quoted in the Reuters report. Blackstone-backed AirTrunk REIT, Nvidia-backed Firmus and SoftBank-backed SB Energy have either pulled or paused their listings, and nuclear services company Holtec cited uncertainty around data-center demand when it pulled its US listing last month. OpenAI's own planned 2027 listing is not guaranteed; investors familiar with the company say it also needs capital to fund substantial infrastructure commitments and bolster its balance sheet in case a deterioration in IPO markets delays it further.

The next dated catalyst is Anthropic's expected mid-November IPO, which is also the moment the capital race compresses into a single decision point for investors. What the October filings show is that both labs are asking for seven-to-nine-figure checks on trillion-dollar marks into a market where the semiconductor bellwether has just given back $1.6 trillion in two weeks. When the two raise into the same window, the one with the faster, firmer close sets the comp for the other.

Related reading: Anthropic Revenue Hit $16.8 Billion in Q3, First Profit Sets Up IPO.

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