OpenAI Seeks 30 Billion Dollar Round Ahead of Anthropic Public Listing
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OpenAI is seeking to raise about $30 billion at a valuation exceeding $1.4 trillion. It plans to close the deal before rival Anthropic lists its shares in mid-November.
The fast-tracked funding round would give the ChatGPT developer fresh private capital. It would also cut off investor cash flows destined for Anthropic’s public market debut.
SoftBank Group, Abu Dhabi investment vehicle MGX and other existing shareholders are in active discussions to take part. Talks have moved quickly. They follow meetings OpenAI held with sovereign wealth funds and long-only institutions in mid-October. That push coincided directly with Anthropic’s own institutional investor presentations in New York.
Rushing to Price Private Equity
Frontier artificial intelligence labs are competing for a narrow group of institutional allocators. Few funds have deep enough pockets to back trillion-dollar balance sheets. By pricing a private round now, OpenAI can lock in multi-billion-dollar allocations. Otherwise, those budgets could go to Anthropic’s IPO order book.
Private capital also insulates OpenAI if broader equity turbulence pushes its target 2027 listing date further back. Huge compute commitments require continuous cash injections. Data center buildouts demand heavy upfront hardware prepayments. Raising privately lets the company set terms without facing quarterly public market scrutiny.
Asian technology investors and institutional funds face a sharp split in capital allocation. SoftBank and Gulf sovereign funds have poured tens of billions into Western foundation models. Debt burdens across AI infrastructure providers are prompting stricter risk assessments. If private valuations outpace public multiples, later-stage backers risk holding illiquid shares priced well above what public markets will tolerate.
Revenue Claims and Accounting Disputes
OpenAI pitched prospective investors on expanding revenue following the rollout of its GPT-6 Astra model. Annualized revenue hit $50 billion. The company expects that run rate to reach $70 billion by the end of the year.
“OpenAI could want to set its own valuation and not have to worry about a comp (comparison),”
To support adoption, the lab cut prices on smaller models and told investors it intends to reduce inference costs further. In contrast, Anthropic reported third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion, up from $11.6 billion in the second quarter. It reached an annualized run rate of roughly $65 billion by July. Slower month-to-month growth has led some pre-IPO investors to push Anthropic’s valuation down toward $1.5 trillion, below an earlier $2 trillion target.
Accounting methodologies remain a primary friction point between both camps. OpenAI calculates revenue on a net basis after deducting partner shares. It claims Anthropic inflates top-line figures by booking gross sales processed through cloud distribution partners. Anthropic maintains that its revenue reporting strictly follows standard accounting rules.
“OpenAI could want to set its own valuation and not have to worry about a comp (comparison),” said Edward Best, co-chair of capital markets at Willkie Farr & Gallagher. “It’s really a two-horse race in terms of being public.”
Infrastructure Costs Rattling Public Markets
Heavy spending on AI infrastructure is rattling public exchanges. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost $1.6 trillion in market capitalization in October. Debt-heavy cloud suppliers have faced steep sell-offs.
Specialized cloud provider CoreWeave saw its debt and equity drop after investors questioned nearly $50 billion in borrowings tied to data center expansion. That volatility has halted listings across the technology sector. Nuclear power developer Holtec withdrew its US offering in September. Blackstone-backed AirTrunk REIT, Nvidia-backed Firmus and SoftBank-backed SB Energy have all postponed or abandoned planned market debuts.
Valuation Escalation Since March
In March, OpenAI raised a record $122 billion round that valued the business at $852 billion. That transaction included a commitment of up to $50 billion from Amazon.
Anthropic now heads into its November listing window while managing investor feedback on third-quarter growth metrics. OpenAI aims to wrap its $30 billion private round before those public regulatory filings reveal full comparative numbers across both balance sheets.