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OpenAI is in early talks with investors about a new funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker at more than $1.2 trillion, as the artificial intelligence company weighs additional capital ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO).
The discussions are still at an early stage, with any decision to proceed expected to depend partly on the timing of OpenAI’s eventual IPO, according to people who spoke woth Bloomberg.
The talks were initiated by investors, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.
What they are saying
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said the company’s long-anticipated IPO would not happen this year. The additional funding could give the company more flexibility to delay the listing by one or two quarters if it decides to do so, according to another person familiar with the discussions.
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- Beyond giving OpenAI more flexibility around an IPO, additional funding could also help the company pursue more mergers and acquisitions.
- OpenAI has spent billions of dollars acquiring startups as it expands beyond its core AI models and chatbot business.
- Among its acquisitions is io, the AI device startup founded by former Apple executive Jony Ive, which OpenAI agreed to acquire in a deal valued at $6.5 billion.
The company has also agreed to acquire Astral, a startup that develops Python tools for software developers, as part of its broader push into coding.
Get up to speed
OpenAI has been raising increasingly large amounts of capital as it expands its artificial intelligence models, products and computing infrastructure.
- The company’s latest major funding round was announced in February 2026, when OpenAI said it had secured $110 billion in new funding at a $730 billion pre-money valuation.
- In April 2025 Nairametrics reported that OpenAI had closed the largest private tech funding round, securing $40 billion and valuing the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion among top private tech firms.
The funding round was led by Japan’s SoftBank, which was investing $30 billion, alongside key investors such as Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive.
What you should know
Anthropic raised funding in May at a valuation of about $965 billion, including the new investment. The two companies are also moving toward potential public listings.
Anthropic has selected Nasdaq for its planned IPO and could begin the process as soon as October, Bloomberg reported. The Claude chatbot maker is seeking to raise as much as or more than SpaceX raised in its June offering. SpaceX raised $86.3 billion in its IPO, making it the largest public offering on record.
OpenAI is also considering legal restrictions on the information it can provide to private-market investors ahead of a potential IPO, further escalating the race among leading generative AI firms to secure capital and dominate the fast-growing sector.
