OpenAI weighs $1.2tn valuation funding round as IPO is delayed, FT reports

Investing.com — OpenAI (NASDAQ:OAI) has begun preliminary talks with investors about a fresh private funding round that might value the ChatGPT developer at roughly $1.2 trillion, the Financial Times reported. The possible raise comes as the startup looks to build on faster revenue growth after releasing its GPT-5.6 and Astra models.

The suggested valuation marks a steep increase from March, when OpenAI raised $122 billion at an $852 billion post-money valuation. The talks are still early and may change, but market participants opened the discussions themselves, reflecting persistently strong private demand for top-tier artificial intelligence exposure.

Even though OpenAI confidentially filed an IPO prospectus in June, extending the listing timetable would let long-term backers such as SoftBank and Thrive Capital increase their equity stakes. Yet a longer private period would also postpone the liquidity event and the sizable payouts that early investors expect.

The new capital would strengthen OpenAI's balance sheet as it contends with heavy operational cash burn from training next-generation foundation models. The company used $34 billion last year, but recent product launches lifted its annualized revenue above $40 billion last month—a 20% sequential jump fueled by the GPT-5.6 rollout, according to the FT.

The financial recovery provides important momentum after a slow start to the year, when major rival Anthropic briefly took market share and locked in a $965 billion post-money valuation. As Anthropic now readies an IPO potentially as soon as October with a target valuation of $2 trillion, OpenAI's potential funding round highlights the fierce capital contest shaping the AI sector.