OpenAI reportedly in talks to raise $30B at $1.4T valuation

OpenAI is in talks with investors to raise at least $30 billion in a pre-IPO funding round at a valuation of roughly $1.4 trillion, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Investors are eager to pour more funds into the ChatGPT maker ahead of its anticipated public market debut next year.

While Anthropic momentarily outpaced OpenAI at the start of the year, a recent strategic refocus on key areas like coding has fueled a 70% jump in OpenAI’s run-rate revenue since July, reaching $40 billion in August, according to the report.

The company previously raised $122 billion in March at an $852 billion valuation. That round was supposed to be its last private raise before an IPO, which had been, until recently, expected to take place this year. However, CEO Sam Altman has now ruled out a public debut in 2026 to prioritize AI safety first. “I think it is unacceptable to be taking like a 10% chance of killing everybody by the end of the decade,” he recently told Fortune, in response to warnings from safety researchers about AI posing an existential risk to humanity.

The new fundraising, if it transpires, will serve as a bridge round to the IPO, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Why it matters

Pricing a bridge round at $1.4 trillion — up from $852 billion seven months earlier — would make OpenAI one of the most valuable private companies ever, even as its own CEO publicly frames existential AI-safety risk as the reason to delay the IPO investors are angling to get ahead of.