OpenAI Pulls In $11 Billion at a $1.25 Trillion Valuation, Well Short of the Round It Set Out to Raise

OpenAI got its money, just less of it, at a lower price. The company has closed about $11 billion in new funding at a $1.25 trillion valuation, with the cash wired on Friday, people familiar with the deal told Bloomberg. The rest of the round should close in the coming weeks and could bring the total to as much as $20 billion.

That is a long way from the plan. OpenAI originally set out to raise $30 billion or more at a $1.4 trillion valuation, according to Bloomberg. Two investors told Reuters the company had at one point sought $1.5 trillion. SoftBank and MGX, the Abu Dhabi investment firm, took part.

A higher price than March, a lower one than hoped

On paper, the round is still a step up. OpenAI raised $122 billion in March at an $852 billion valuation, Investing.com notes, so the valuation is still about 47% higher than it was eight months ago. SoftBank had already borrowed nearly $12 billion earlier this year to keep up with its OpenAI commitments.

But the trend is what investors are watching. OpenAI spent more than a month negotiating this round after pushing back its plans for an initial public offering, and both the size and the price came down along the way. Rival Anthropic is getting the same treatment: some investors now value its planned IPO at around $1.5 trillion, down from expectations of roughly $2 trillion, according to Reuters.

Why the market cooled

The timing explains a lot. AI stocks just had a bruising stretch: the Nasdaq lost close to $1 trillion in a single week, and Nvidia's slide was the biggest drag on the S&P 500. The midterm elections added a new worry, as candidates backing limits on data center construction won in states like Texas and Ohio and voters approved local measures that could slow the buildout.

That buildout is exactly what OpenAI's money pays for, from chips to data centers to power. This round still values the company above $1 trillion. It also shows that, for the first time in a while, investors are setting the terms.

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