OpenAI raises $11 billion at $1.25 trillion valuation
The round could reach $20 billion, short of the $30 billion OpenAI sought at a $1.4 trillion valuation in September, Bloomberg reported.
Summary
OpenAI has closed about $11 billion, the first part of a funding round that values it at $1.25 trillion, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.
The round is smaller, and the price lower, than OpenAI first planned. In late September, an earlier Bloomberg report said the company was targeting $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation, a goal The Verge noted was set before tech stocks fell and before the November 3 US midterm elections.
The money had been wired to OpenAI as of Friday, the people said. The remainder of the round, which could bring the total to as much as $20 billion, is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, according to one of them.
Also on Friday, a Bloomberg report on Anthropic said some potential buyers of shares in the rival lab’s initial public offering believe its valuation could be as low as $1.1 trillion, compared with the $2 trillion investors were said to expect about a month earlier.
OpenAI raised $122 billion from investors in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Ahead of the midterms, the company prepared a policy and public-relations campaign that includes renaming its data centers “AI compute campuses”, Axios reported on November 1.
OpenAI is expected to hold a call with investors in the week of November 9 to discuss its third-quarter results, according to The Information, which cited a person familiar with the plan.