- OpenAI has held early talks with investors about a round that could value it above $1.2 trillion.
- The Financial Times says investors approached OpenAI, not the other way round.
- Anthropic is chasing a similar number, on secondary markets and toward an October IPO.
OpenAI has held early discussions with investors about a new funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker above $1.2 trillion, according to the Financial Times. The talks are still at an early stage, the figure could move, and investors approached OpenAI rather than the other way round.
If it happens, the round would land just months after OpenAI closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation in March, the largest private financing round in Silicon Valley history, anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, with Microsoft and a16z also participating.
A $1.2 trillion mark would represent roughly a 41% jump in under six months, on top of a company that is already one of the most heavily capitalised private businesses on record.
Why raise again so soon
OpenAI has already confidentially filed IPO paperwork, then quietly pushed the listing out. A private round in the meantime would hand OpenAI more capital without the disclosure obligations of a public listing, and would let backers like SoftBank and Thrive Capital add to their positions before an eventual float.
That matters because OpenAI’s spending needs are enormous: the company spent $34 billion last year, largely on training and infrastructure, and posted a $38.5 billion net loss in 2025 on $13.07 billion in revenue.
It also isn’t the company’s first move to keep employees and early backers happy without going public. In August, OpenAI completed a $7 billion tender offer at the same $852 billion valuation, letting current and former staff cash out stock.
The revenue behind the number
The renewed funding talks come as OpenAI’s commercial numbers accelerate. Annualised revenue crossed $40 billion in July, roughly double where the company ended 2025, according to Bloomberg.
Greg Brockman said the annualised run rate grew more than 20% month-over-month that month, crediting momentum from the GPT-5.6 model series, ChatGPT Work and Codex. OpenAI has since launched GPT-6 Astra, on September 3, extending that product cycle further.
OpenAI has also been buying its way into adjacent markets. It acquired Promptfoo, an AI red-teaming platform used by more than a quarter of Fortune 500 companies, to fold automated security testing into its Frontier enterprise agent platform.
Anthropic changes the IPO equation
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation in May, briefly passing OpenAI in private-market value for the first time. It has since confidentially filed for an IPO and, according to Bloomberg, picked Nasdaq for a listing that could come as soon as October, with Reuters reporting marketing could start in mid-October and wrap before the November midterms.
Anthropic’s shares have also been trading on secondary markets at an implied valuation around $1.2 trillion — though, as with any secondary trade, that price reflects what a scarce number of willing sellers can command, not a formal company valuation or what public investors would ultimately pay.
So the two companies are now converging on the same number from opposite directions: OpenAI negotiating toward $1.2 trillion in a primary round, Anthropic already trading near it on the sidelines while it prepares to test that price for real. Whichever one lists first will effectively set the multiple the other has to live up to.
The reported $1.2 trillion figure is still just a number under discussion — talks this early can fall apart or shrink. What it does resolve is the underlying tension in OpenAI’s strategy: preserve cash and delay public scrutiny for as long as possible, or take the capital now and let a future IPO answer to whatever price today’s investors are willing to set.
Based on the tender offer, the acquisitions and now this, OpenAI looks to be choosing the first option for as long as private investors keep showing up with checks.
