OpenAI has scaled back the private funding round it is raising, according to a Financial Times report of 30 October that Trending Topics, Startup Fortune and Digital Today picked up. The target falls by $10 billion to about $20 billion, and the valuation it is asking for drops to $1.25 trillion from $1.4 trillion, a cut of roughly $150 billion. Some investors reduced the amounts they planned to put in, and the deadline for binding commitments passed on Friday without the round closing.
“Given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public”
Sam Altman, OpenAI chief executive, to TechCrunch, as printed by Trending Topics · trendingtopics.eu ↗
The first close could come in below $20 billion, and CNBC reported on 31 October that the amount could still change. A UAE consortium including the state-backed fund MGX is expected to be the largest backer, in exchange for an option to lease new compute capacity in the region. Founders Fund, Coatue, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz and SoftBank also plan to take part, and wealthy individuals are to be offered shares at the same valuation afterwards. SoftBank's slice reportedly shrank from $30 billion to $20 billion, and Nvidia has scaled back a planned investment of up to $100 billion to about $30 billion.
The timing was unlucky. A backer told the FT the process began amid enthusiasm for AI stocks and was caught out by a sharp reversal: the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.9% on Friday, ending 7.8% below its early-October record, after Alphabet, Amazon and Intel disappointed on results. Annualised revenue was about $50 billion at the end of September, against the $68 to $70 billion investors had been told, a gap mainly due to cloud-partner revenue not being fully booked. OpenAI expects to burn $278 billion in cash through 2030.
Illustration pairing OpenAI's Sam Altman with the Financial Times, the paper that broke the funding cut
Image: Startup Fortune
The round is a bridge. OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO in June, and Sarah Friar told staff in August it would be public in 2027, but Sam Altman has ruled out listing this year, saying the delay is about AI safety debates and society's readiness rather than market sentiment. Oracle's contract of roughly $300 billion and CoreWeave are cited as tying the supply chain to OpenAI's financing.
About OpenAI
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit, with Elon Musk and Sam Altman as co-chairs; Musk resigned in 2018. Its fundraising has climbed steeply since then.
In October 2024 it closed a $6.6 billion round at a $157 billion valuation. In 2025 it raised $40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation in a SoftBank-led round, then the highest-value private tech deal in history. In 2026 it closed a record round at an $852 billion post-money valuation with $122 billion in committed capital, up from the $110 billion first announced. Each step raised the price investors paid for a stake, which is the trend the current round now bends.
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Startup Fortune reads the cut as confirmation of nerves over AI spending, while Trending Topics notes $20 billion is still among the largest rounds ever and $1.25 trillion the highest private valuation. OpenAI wants commitments locked before Anthropic's IPO, expected in mid-November at $1.5 trillion or more. Final terms, and whether $1.25 trillion holds, are still being worked out.