OpenAI Group PBC has secured $11 billion in new funding at a $1.25 trillion valuation, with investors wiring the funds on Friday, according to Bloomberg sources. The round could expand by up to $9 billion in the coming weeks, which would bring the total close to $20 billion. The deal positions OpenAI for a public listing planned for sometime in 2027. The scale of the raise matters because the company carries very large infrastructure commitments ahead of that listing.
Funding terms and recent business momentum
The backers in the new tranche were not named in the report. Possible participants include Microsoft, which contributed to at least four earlier OpenAI rounds. The most recent was a $122 billion raise in March that also included Nvidia, Amazon and about two dozen other investors. That history suggests a syndicate built around large cloud and chip suppliers rather than purely financial investors.
The structure leaves room for a second close that would add up to $9 billion to the current $11 billion. Such staged funding lets OpenAI lock in valuation while keeping flexibility on final allocations. The reported $1.25 trillion valuation invites comparison with Anthropic, which hopes for $1.5 trillion in its upcoming initial public offering. One Anthropic shareholder reportedly suggested a figure closer to $1 trillion as more realistic.
Revenue data cited in recent reports helps explain investor interest in both companies. Anthropic disclosed a 1,127% year-over-year jump in quarterly revenue in the third quarter in its IPO filing. OpenAI closed the same quarter with $50 billion in net annualized revenue, up 77% year over year, according to the Financial Times. OpenAI said growth came from its enterprise business, where sales more than doubled.
What the raise means for enterprise AI buyers
Product releases point to where OpenAI expects further enterprise demand. GPT-6 Cyber, released on Thursday, performs most cybersecurity tasks better than GPT-6 Astra, the most capable general-purpose model. OpenAI engineers used it to develop 948 Linux exploits and uncover 81 high-severity zero-day flaws in Firefox. For corporate security teams, that signals AI tools moving from assistance to direct testing and vulnerability discovery.
Management commentary adds detail on the growth drivers behind the numbers. President Greg Brockman said growth slowed in the first half of the year and accelerated after the June launch of GPT-5.6 Sol, the predecessor to GPT-6 Astra. He also credited the ChatGPT Work productivity application and coding tools. Companies evaluating AI vendors should therefore weigh model releases together with workflow products that affect adoption.
The funding also relates to long-term compute costs that buyers rarely see directly. The Information reported in July that OpenAI holds more than $665 billion in chip and data center commitments. The company developed a custom inference accelerator with Broadcom to reduce long-term hardware spending. Anthropic is expected to present its IPO roadmap next week and go public before Thanksgiving, so relative execution on infrastructure efficiency will stay in focus.
