Shirin Ghaffari
OpenAI is in advanced talks with investors about a new funding round that will value the ChatGPT creator at more than $1.2 trillion ahead of its initial public offering.
Any decision to proceed with fundraising efforts will depend on exactly when OpenAI decides to go public, said a person familiar with the talks, who asked not to be named. The negotiations were initiated by investors, the agency’s interlocutor said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously told Fortune that the company’s long-awaited IPO was still in the works but would not happen this year. The additional funding, if accepted by the AI giant, would provide flexibility to potentially push back the IPO another quarter or two, another person familiar said.
Another reason OpenAI might consider raising more money is to support more mergers and acquisitions, the person said.
The company has spent billions acquiring startups, including veteran Apple Inc.’s AI device startup io. Jony Ive and Astral, a startup that creates Python tools for developers.
A funding round of this size could allow OpenAI to leapfrog its archrival Anthropic, which raised $965 billion in funding including new funding in May.
OpenAI is also considering legal restrictions on what information it can share with private market investors ahead of an IPO, the person said.
The Financial Times reported the talks earlier on Tuesday, noting that the round would allow longtime backers to increase their stake ahead of the company’s IPO.
Anthropic is preparing for its own IPO and has chosen Nasdaq as its listing platform. Chatbot maker Claude is aiming to raise as much or more than SpaceX in an IPO that could come as soon as October, Bloomberg reports. In June, SpaceX raised a record $86.3 billion in its offering.