OpenAI Banks $11 Billion at $1.25 Trillion Valuation as Round Falls Short

OpenAI has received about $11 billion in new funding at a $1.25 trillion valuation, Bloomberg reported on Friday, in the first close of a fundraising round that has shrunk sharply from the company’s original ambitions.

The money has been wired to the company, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. The $11 billion is only the first portion of a round that has not yet closed, and the total could reach about $20 billion in the coming weeks. OpenAI declined to comment on the report.

The figures still leave OpenAI as the most richly valued private artificial intelligence company in the world — but they also mark a clear cooling in the market that once seemed willing to fund it at almost any price.

A smaller round than planned

In late September, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was looking to raise $30 billion at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion. The round now taking shape is roughly a third smaller in size and priced about 11% lower.

The Wall Street Journal had already reported on 30 October that OpenAI had secured roughly $11 billion in investor commitments. Bloomberg’s latest reporting indicates that the money has now actually been transferred.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar addressed the fundraising on CNBC on Friday, saying the round is priced at $1.25 trillion before the new money arrives. “The round is ongoing, but we feel quite confident in it,” she said.

The $1.25 trillion figure is still about 47% higher than the $852 billion valuation set in March, when OpenAI raised $122 billion in committed capital. That rise underlines how far the company’s value has climbed even as investors grow more selective.

Who is backing the first close

Bloomberg reported that Coatue Management and T. Rowe Price contributed to the first close. Reuters reported that SoftBank and MGX also took part, extending their previous investments in the company.

Other participants in the round are reported to include Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, alongside a syndicate of backers from the United Arab Emirates. The full roster of investors has not been disclosed, and the reports did not say how much each backer committed.

Microsoft, which has contributed to at least four of OpenAI’s previous rounds, was named among the possible participants in the reporting, but its involvement in this close was not confirmed.

Why investors are cooler on AI

The reduced round comes after a sell-off in AI-related shares, as investors question the scale of spending on data centres and other infrastructure. OpenAI’s backers are not alone in facing tougher terms: prospective buyers of shares in Anthropic’s planned public offering are discussing valuations as low as $1.1 trillion, well below a $2 trillion target, according to Bloomberg reporting cited this week.

The caution is a shift from the mood earlier this year, when big technology companies have taken on hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to fund AI spending, and demand for AI chips has pushed chipmakers’ earnings to record levels.

For OpenAI, the money is closely tied to its infrastructure plans. The company has committed to vast computing capacity to train and run its models, and that spending is the main reason it keeps returning to investors. OpenAI told investors its annualised revenue was nearly $50 billion in September, and it expects that figure to reach or exceed $70 billion by the end of the year.

What comes next

About $9 billion of the round is still to be raised, with the remainder expected in the coming weeks. Until the round closes, the final total — and the final list of investors — remains unsettled.

OpenAI is also evaluating a public listing in 2027, Friar said on CNBC, after filing a confidential prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June. A listing would test whether public markets share private investors’ confidence at a $1.25 trillion valuation.

For now, the $11 billion gives OpenAI fresh capital at a record valuation, even as the smaller round shows that the era of unchecked AI fundraising is, at least for the moment, over.