OpenAI Reportedly Closes $11 Billion at $1.25 Trillion Valuation

OpenAI has banked about $11 billion as the first installment of a new private funding round that values the ChatGPT developer at $1.25 trillion, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the deal.

The money had reached OpenAI by Friday, November 6, the people told Bloomberg, speaking anonymously. One of them said the rest of the round should close over the next few weeks, and that the total could rise to as much as $20 billion.

That ceiling sits well below where the company started. According to earlier Bloomberg reporting, OpenAI first went after at least $30 billion, priced at $1.4 trillion, but trimmed its ambitions as AI stocks sold off sharply in public markets. The talks have run for more than a month, beginning after OpenAI pushed back its plans for an initial public offering.

Coatue Management and T. Rowe Price put money into the first close, according to the people. SoftBank Group Corp., Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz are also taking part in the round.

SoftBank, Founders Fund and T. Rowe Price declined to comment, while Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia did not immediately reply to Bloomberg's requests. OpenAI is also working through investment banks to draw money from high-net-worth individuals and retail investors, the people said.

That retail channel has been used before. When OpenAI closed its March round with $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation, it said it had opened participation through bank channels for the first time, raising more than $3 billion from individual investors. It also said OpenAI would be included in several exchange-traded funds managed by ARK Invest.

Several names in the new round backed that March deal too. SoftBank co-led it alongside Andreessen Horowitz, D. E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, while Coatue and Sequoia Capital were among the other institutions OpenAI listed. Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank anchored that financing, with Microsoft continuing to participate.

The Gulf connection surfaced in October, when UAE funds and BlackRock were reported to be weighing a role in what was then pitched as a round of at least $30 billion. A UAE syndicate could put in as much as $10 billion, with Abu Dhabi-based MGX among the prospective participants. OpenAI's ties to the country also run through Stargate UAE, a planned one-gigawatt computing cluster in Abu Dhabi whose partners include G42, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank.

On the reported figures, the $1.25 trillion price is about 47% above March's $852 billion valuation but $150 billion short of the $1.4 trillion OpenAI first sought. A $20 billion round would be one-third smaller than the original $30 billion goal, leaving about $9 billion still to arrive after the first close.

The reduced fundraising targets mark a shift for OpenAI, whose earlier funding rounds helped fuel the AI boom. Investor sentiment has weakened amid concerns about heavy spending on AI infrastructure and potential new barriers to data centre construction following the U.S. midterm elections.

The repricing reaches beyond OpenAI. Prospective buyers in the planned IPO of rival Anthropic PBC, the developer of Claude, are discussing a valuation range of $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion, down from $1.5 trillion previously, according to Bloomberg.

OpenAI's own listing is further out. In September, as investors opened early talks about a valuation near $1.2 trillion, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said a flotation would not happen in 2026. Closing part of the round at a lower price than first pitched could give the company fresh capital without waiting for public markets to recover, although the final size may depend on how much the banks raise from wealthy and retail investors.

OpenAI said in March that it was generating $2 billion in revenue per month, and that its revolving credit facility, expanded to approximately $4.7 billion, remained undrawn when that round closed.