OpenAI headquarters

OpenAI is in a hurry — and the clock is Anthropic’s. The ChatGPT maker is racing to secure roughly $30 billion in fresh funding at a valuation above $1.4 trillion, before rival Anthropic’s expected IPO in mid-November gives investors their first hard look at a frontier lab’s books.

Reuters reported the accelerated timetable on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The logic is blunt: Anthropic’s IPO disclosures will hand investors a clearer basis for comparing the two companies, and both labs are courting the same pool of sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors. Some investors, Reuters noted, see OpenAI’s rush as an attempt to lock up capital that might otherwise flow into Anthropic’s listing.

The revenue pitch

To justify the price tag — roughly 64% above the $852 billion valuation set when OpenAI raised $122 billion in March — the company is pointing to a steepening revenue curve. OpenAI has told investors its annualized revenue reached $50 billion after the GPT-6 Astra launch and could climb toward $70 billion by year-end, according to CoinStats’ reporting on the round.

The underlying metrics have real momentum: OpenAI said at its DevDay on September 29 that ChatGPT now reaches more than 1.2 billion people a week — up from 900 million in February — and CFO Sarah Friar has said enterprise revenue has overtaken consumer revenue. (Annualized revenue is a run-rate projection, not income already booked.)

Who’s at the table

OpenAI held meetings with long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds last week while Anthropic was hosting its own investor day. Existing backers SoftBank and Abu Dhabi’s MGX are in talks to join the round, per Reuters. Bloomberg first reported the talks on September 29, when they were still in the early stages.

Why the urgency is real

The fundraising is expected to move faster than is typical for an offering of its size — and the pressure is more than competitive. OpenAI needs capital to fund its substantial infrastructure commitments, and investors familiar with the company say the round would also bolster its balance sheet if a further deterioration in IPO markets delays its planned 2027 listing. CEO Sam Altman has ruled out a 2026 public debut to prioritize safety work, after the company confidentially filed IPO paperwork in June.

The backdrop is getting less forgiving: rising interest rates, heavy volatility in technology stocks, and sharpening scrutiny of AI valuations — all while a string of giant compute deals (Anthropic’s $45 billion Nscale agreement being the latest template) keeps raising the bar on how much money a frontier lab needs to stay in the race.

Whether $1.4 trillion prices a trajectory or a hope will be tested the moment Anthropic’s IPO prospectus lands. We’ll be watching.

Sources: Reuters via The Hindu BusinessLine (Oct 20, 2026); TechCrunch (Sep 29, 2026); CoinStats (Oct 19, 2026). Figures attributed to the companies are their own and await independent verification.