Key Points
- OpenAI is finalizing a raise of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation.
- Investors from the United Arab Emirates are leading the round alongside Coatue, people familiar said.
- The financing is framed as a bridge ahead of a possible OpenAI public listing.
The latest:
Up to $30 billion is being raised by OpenAI at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, people familiar with the deal told CNBC, with investors from the United Arab Emirates leading the financing alongside Coatue. The company told investors on Thursday it wants signatures secured by the end of next week. The final size of the round has not been set.
Details:
- The valuation: The $1.25 trillion figure is pre-money and excludes the new capital being raised, according to people familiar with the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details were confidential. The number would place the San Francisco-based company above $1 trillion for the first time, ahead of any listing.
- The Emirati role: Investors from the United Arab Emirates are leading the round alongside the investment firm Coatue, the same people said. Separately, OpenAI is negotiating a commercial deal that would secure additional computing capacity from the UAE, according to one person familiar with the talks.
- How it started: OpenAI opened discussions on a new round after investors approached the company with proposals in September, CNBC previously reported. The financing is being positioned internally as an opportunistic bridge rather than a final pre-listing raise, the people said.
- The compute bill: OpenAI told investors in February that it is targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spending by 2030. That projected outlay dwarfs the size of the round now being assembled and helps explain the parallel push for capacity commitments from the Emirates.
- The IPO track: The company confidentially filed its prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. It has not disclosed when it intends to debut, and the final size of the current round remains undetermined.
- Mixed signals: Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told employees in August that the AI lab will be a public company in 2027. A month later, Chief Executive Sam Altman said that “right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public.”
- The rival: Anthropic, OpenAI’s chief rival, also filed its prospectus confidentially with regulators in June and is meeting prospective investors, CNBC previously reported. It is reported to be seeking a valuation of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in its offering.
- Recent benchmark: Anthropic closed a $65 billion funding round in May at a $965 billion valuation, a marker that sets the scale of private capital now moving into the two leading AI labs within a single year.
Between the lines:
The bridge framing and the unresolved round size point to a company raising on investor demand rather than a fixed schedule. Friar’s 2027 timeline and Altman’s warning against listing now sit in tension, and the parallel compute negotiation suggests the Emirati money and the capacity OpenAI needs for its $600 billion target are being pursued as one package.
What’s next
OpenAI is aiming to collect investor signatures by the end of next week, when the final size of the round should become clear. No listing date has been disclosed by either OpenAI or Anthropic.
