OpenAI has reportedly closed only about $11 billion of the $30 billion it set out to raise, according to the Wall Street Journal. The valuation in the round is said to be $1.25 trillion, below the $1.4 trillion the company wanted.
The shortfall is blamed on large investors getting cautious after a tech sell-off that followed disappointing earnings from Google, Amazon and Intel. We could not find a comment from OpenAI, and the company has not confirmed the round or the valuation.
In its write-up of the report, The Decoder says OpenAI will now turn to family offices and wealthy individuals for as much as $20 billion more, and is reportedly eyeing a stock market listing early next year.
The target itself was not a secret. Earlier reports of the round said OpenAI was looking for at least $30 billion at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion, which makes the reported $11 billion a clear miss against what had been floated. Whether the remaining money from private investors arrives, and at what price, is the open question for the next few weeks.
Competition is part of the backdrop. Anthropic’s revenue has been climbing faster, and it may list as soon as November, which could give it more than $100 billion to spend. OpenAI has responded with price cuts and leaner models, and is said to have regained some ground.
All of this rests on unnamed-source reporting, so the figures could change before any official announcement.
