Sam Altman’s OpenAI is reportedly wrapping up a fundraising round that would value the company well above $1 trillion as it mulls when to go public.
The ChatGPT maker is raising up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, CNBC reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
The $1.25 trillion figure does not factor in the new capital raised in the round.
Participants in the fundraising round include tech investment firm Coatue and unnamed investors from the United Arab Emirates, the report said.
The fresh funds are reportedly seen as an “opportunistic” bridge ahead of the possible IPO – which was initially tabbed to occur this year but has since been delayed.
The final size of the fundraising round has yet to be finalized – though OpenAI reportedly informed investors that it wants to secure signatures by the end of the week.
OpenAI confidentially filed paperwork with the SEC in a bid to go public in August, but executives have been cagey about exactly when an IPO will occur.
Last month, Altman told Fortune that it is “an ill-advised moment to go public,” while OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar has signaled that the IPO will happen sometime in 2027.
The deliberations about a public debut are playing out during a tense moment for AI giants.
Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and others have called for an industrywide slowdown on AI development even as they maneuver to secure new funds from investors.
Anthropic is reportedly eyeing mid-November for its IPO, which is expected to value the company behind the Claude AI model at somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.
On Thursday, The Post’s Charles Gasparino reported that Wall Street investors were pushing both Anthropic and OpenAI to move quickly toward going public, due to concerns that a Democratic win in the midterms will trigger a crackdown on the AI industry.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which includes his artificial intelligence lab xAI, held a record-setting IPO in June.
Musk himself suggested this week that SpaceX could merge with his other company, electric car maker Tesla, which would create a $3.5 trillion behemoth.
The Post has reached out to OpenAI for comment.
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