OpenAI Reportedly Shopping New Funding Round at Valuation Up to 1.5 Trillion

Investors initially floated $1.2 trillion; OpenAI pushed back, arguing its newest AI models and surging demand for its Codex coding tool justify the higher number. If it closes anywhere near that figure, OpenAI would become the most valuable private company on the planet, at a moment when its own CEO has just pushed the company's IPO plans back to 2027.

What's Actually Being Discussed

According to multiple reports citing people familiar with the discussions, OpenAI has been talking with investors about a new pre-IPO funding round. Investors initially approached the company with an offer to invest at a $1.2 trillion valuation. OpenAI, however, is holding out for something higher, arguing it deserves at least $1.5 trillion based on accelerating growth in Codex, its coding tool, and traction from its newest AI models, reportedly GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol.

That $300 billion gap between what investors offered and what OpenAI wants isn't a rounding error. It's a genuine negotiation over how much of OpenAI's story about the future — enterprise software, education, healthcare, scientific research, all supposedly transformed by its next generation of models — investors are willing to pay for today, versus how much they think is currently justified by actual revenue and usage.

Multiple outlets stress that nothing has been finalized and terms could still change. But even the reported range would represent a dramatic jump. OpenAI's most recent private round, closed in March, brought in a record $122 billion at a valuation of $730 billion, the largest single funding round in Silicon Valley history at the time. Since its founding in 2015, the company has now raised more than $180 billion in total.

Why Now? The IPO Delay Timing Isn't a Coincidence

This funding push comes just days after CEO Sam Altman announced that OpenAI will not go public this year after all, pushing the company's planned listing to 2027. Altman has cited rising AI safety concerns as part of the reasoning behind the delay, though the company had already shelved an earlier 2026 timeline once before, at that point citing a need to shore up its finances first.

The sequencing matters here. A large pre-IPO round gives OpenAI room to keep funding the enormous compute, talent, and energy costs required to stay competitive, without needing to rush a public listing before it's ready. It also lets early backers increase their stakes at a defined price before the far more public, far less controllable process of an IPO valuation gets set by the broader market.

The Anthropic Backdrop Makes This More Interesting

OpenAI isn't operating in a vacuum here, and its chief rival's trajectory is part of why this valuation conversation is happening now. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has reportedly disclosed to investors that its annualized revenue has climbed to roughly $65 billion, a figure that would put it ahead of OpenAI's comparable metric, with some investors believing that number could reach $100 to $120 billion by the end of 2026. Anthropic has also picked Nasdaq for a possible October public listing and could raise more than $100 billion at a valuation of around $2 trillion.

That's a genuinely unusual dynamic: the smaller, younger rival is currently generating more revenue and closer to actually completing a public listing than the company most people still consider the industry's flagship name. It's not hard to see how that context sharpens OpenAI's incentive to lock in a headline-grabbing valuation of its own, and soon.

The Skepticism Worth Taking Seriously

Not everyone is convinced this round, or its price tag, makes sense. Several AI startups that raised at peak valuations in 2024 and 2025 have struggled to justify those same numbers in subsequent funding rounds, as public market investors have grown noticeably more selective about AI exposure generally. OpenAI isn't necessarily immune to that broader shift just because ChatGPT remains a dominant consumer product.

There's also a genuinely awkward optics problem playing out alongside the funding talks. OpenAI is pursuing this valuation push at the same time the broader AI industry has been publicly warning about the dangers of unchecked AI development and calling for a slower pace. Critics have pointed out that this kind of caution, coming from the largest players in the space, can look less like genuine safety concern and more like an attempt to protect market position from smaller competitors — a fair critique to sit with, even if it doesn't settle the underlying safety debate either way.

What Actually Justifies a Number This Big

The bullish case rests on a fairly simple bet: that OpenAI's latest models represent enough of a capability leap to unlock genuinely new revenue categories, not just incremental growth in existing ones. If that story holds up, a $1.5 trillion valuation could look, in hindsight, like it was priced conservatively rather than aggressively. If it doesn't hold up, OpenAI risks pricing itself out of reach of the very investors it needs to keep funding the infrastructure race it's currently locked in with Anthropic, Google, and every other major AI lab.

There's also a more mundane legal wrinkle worth knowing about: any new financing round has to be navigated carefully given the confidential prospectus OpenAI already has on file with the SEC ahead of its eventual IPO, adding a layer of securities law complexity to how much the company can share with prospective investors during these talks.

FAQs

1. How much has OpenAI raised in total?

More than $180 billion since its 2015 founding, including a record $122 billion round in March 2026 at a $730 billion valuation.

2. Why is OpenAI seeking a higher valuation than investors initially offered?

Investors reportedly proposed $1.2 trillion, while OpenAI is pushing for $1.5 trillion, citing accelerating demand for its Codex coding tool and its newest AI models.

3. Why did OpenAI delay its IPO?

CEO Sam Altman cited rising AI safety concerns as the reason for pushing the planned listing to 2027, after an earlier 2026 timeline had already been shelved once for financial reasons.

4. How does this compare to Anthropic's valuation?

Anthropic, OpenAI's chief rival, is reportedly preparing for a possible October IPO and could raise more than $100 billion at a valuation of roughly $2 trillion, with annualized revenue reportedly ahead of OpenAI's.