OpenAI wants $30 billion, and it wants the money before Anthropic starts selling itself to the public. Reuters reported Monday that the ChatGPT maker is racing to lock in investor commitments for a funding round of about $30 billion that could value it at more than $1.4 trillion — with the timing anything but subtle. The company hopes to close the round before rival Anthropic’s expected IPO in mid-November, when Anthropic’s own financial disclosures would hand investors a side-by-side comparison that neither lab seems eager to face.
Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that SoftBank Group, Abu Dhabi-based MGX, and other existing OpenAI backers are in talks to join the round. OpenAI spent last week meeting long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds — while Anthropic was holding its own investor day. The round is expected to move faster than is typical for an offering of this size, and that is a remarkable thing to say about a $30 billion check.
The OpenAI funding round is really a race
Speed is the whole strategy here. One of Reuters’ sources said OpenAI wants the fundraise wrapped up before Anthropic’s IPO filings let investors compare the two labs line by line. Some investors read the push more bluntly: it’s an attempt to lock up capital from funds that might otherwise pour it into Anthropic’s offering. Both companies are now tapping the same pool of deep-pocketed backers, and both are chasing trillion-dollar price tags.
The backdrop doesn’t help anyone’s nerves. The fundraising is happening amid rising interest rates, volatile tech stocks, and increasingly loud questions about whether AI valuations still make sense. A $30 billion round at a $1.4 trillion valuation is a bet that the AI buildout keeps getting funded — and a $1.4 trillion number is a lot easier to defend before a competitor’s audited numbers are on the record.
Then there’s the matter of what OpenAI would say about it. OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment to Reuters; Anthropic and MGX didn’t immediately respond. Nobody in this story is eager to talk on the record.
What OpenAI is telling investors
The pitch, per Reuters’ sources, is momentum. OpenAI says its annualized revenue has hit $50 billion following the launch of its GPT-6 Astra model and expects $70 billion by year-end. It has cut prices on its cheaper models, which it says drove usage up — consistent with its own disclosure last month that its annualized revenue run rate was nearing $70 billion and had climbed more than 70% since the start of the third quarter.
Put differently: the company is selling the story that its products got better and cheaper at the same time, and customers responded by showing up in force.
Context helps here. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion in March, after a record $122 billion round that included Amazon’s commitment of up to $50 billion. A jump to $1.4 trillion in seven months would be staggering: a roughly 65% markup. That is exactly why getting ahead of Anthropic’s disclosures matters. When the alternative is letting the market price you against a rival’s freshly published financials, raising first starts to look like basic self-defense.
Why the money matters beyond bragging rights
Thirty billion dollars doesn’t spend itself on valuation headlines. Investors familiar with the company told Reuters that OpenAI also needs the capital to fund its massive infrastructure commitments — data centers, chips, power contracts — and to pad its balance sheet in case a softening IPO market pushes back its planned 2027 listing.
That last point deserves a second look. CEO Sam Altman said last month that OpenAI would not go public in 2026, citing AI safety concerns, and Bloomberg previously described this raise as a bridge that gives the company capital in place of an IPO. The message to investors is effectively: we’re too expensive and too early to list, so pay us now at the price we name.
Meanwhile, we won’t have to guess about Anthropic’s side of the comparison much longer. Its draft IPO prospectus is already circulating, and The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that it shows a net loss of more than $80 billion in the first half of 2026 — up from $13 billion in the same period a year earlier. Anthropic didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Read the fine print and that number gets less shocking: $72 billion of the loss comes from accounting charges tied to changes in the value of convertible notes and other instruments the company issued to raise funding, not from the day-to-day cost of running an AI lab. Still, it’s the kind of headline that makes OpenAI’s rush to raise first look like strategy rather than impatience.
Anthropic, for its part, is playing a different card. On Sunday it announced it would commit 5% of its shares to a new public benefit fund — backing nonprofit donations, direct distributions to specific populations, and efforts around AI’s effect on the labor market. The pledge arrives in the middle of a political fight over who gets the AI money, months after Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would hand the public a 50% stake in the biggest US AI companies.
The bigger picture
Zoom out and the pattern is hard to miss. Two frontier labs are racing each other for capital, chips, talent, and regulators’ goodwill — while simultaneously sitting at the same tables on AI safety and, this month, confirming weeks of joint coordination with Google DeepMind on cybersecurity safeguards. The competition and the coordination are running side by side, and neither side shows any interest in dropping either.
Thirty billion dollars doesn’t make OpenAI the winner of anything. But it buys a very expensive insurance policy: a full war chest before its rival’s numbers hit the public record, at a valuation set before the comparison can happen. In a market this jittery, that premium might be the cheapest thing about it.
FAQ
How much is OpenAI trying to raise in its new funding round?
About $30 billion, according to Reuters, which cited two people familiar with the matter. The round could value OpenAI at more than $1.4 trillion, with SoftBank Group, Abu Dhabi-based MGX, and other existing backers in talks to join.
Why is OpenAI raising money before Anthropic’s IPO?
One source told Reuters that OpenAI wants to finish its fundraise before Anthropic’s expected mid-November IPO, because Anthropic’s disclosures would let investors compare the two labs directly. Some investors also see it as a bid to lock up capital that might otherwise go to Anthropic’s offering.
What is OpenAI telling investors about revenue?
OpenAI says its annualized revenue has reached $50 billion following the launch of its GPT-6 Astra model, and it expects $70 billion by year-end. It also says cutting prices on cheaper models boosted usage.
When will OpenAI go public?
Not in 2026. CEO Sam Altman said last month the company would not list this year, citing AI safety concerns. Investors told Reuters OpenAI wants the $30 billion in part to cushion its balance sheet in case weak IPO markets delay its planned 2027 listing.
Sources: Reuters, PTI via The Hindu BusinessLine, Aju Press, The Wall Street Journal.