OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round this week at a post-money valuation of $852 billion, the largest private funding round ever completed by any company anywhere in the world. The deal dwarfs previous AI startup fundraises and formally makes OpenAI the most valuable private company in history.
The bulk of the capital came from three strategic technology partners. Amazon committed $50 billion, though $35 billion of that sum is contingent on OpenAI either going public or reaching the milestone of artificial general intelligence. Nvidia and SoftBank each contributed $30 billion.
A long list of institutional names also participated. Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, TPG, T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital and several others joined a round that pulled in capital from across the globe.
For the first time in OpenAI’s history, the company also raised more than $3 billion from individual investors via bank channels. That retail participation, combined with an announcement that OpenAI will be included in several ARK Invest ETFs, signals deliberate preparation for an eventual IPO.
CFO Sarah Friar said the round “blows out of the water even the largest IPO that’s ever been done.” She was careful not to commit to a specific IPO timeline but described the fundraise as giving the company “a lot of flexibility” while broader public markets remain uncertain.
OpenAI is currently generating $2 billion in monthly revenue and has more than 900 million weekly active users on ChatGPT. Its enterprise segment now makes up more than 40% of total revenue and is on track to reach parity with consumer revenue by the end of 2026.
The company confirmed its ads pilot programme has already crossed $100 million in annualised recurring revenue after just six weeks. OpenAI had historically described advertising as a “last resort,” making this a notable shift in strategy.
The capital will fund an extraordinarily ambitious infrastructure plan. OpenAI has previously indicated plans to spend more than $1.4 trillion on physical AI infrastructure over the coming years, including chips, data centres and talent.
The valuation also puts OpenAI in an unusual position relative to SpaceX’s forthcoming IPO and Anthropic’s own potential public offering. The combined market appetite required to absorb all three would represent an unprecedented injection of new equity supply across a short timeframe.
The round also included an expansion of OpenAI’s revolving credit facility to approximately $4.7 billion, providing additional working capital flexibility as the company scales its agentic product suite and its GPT-5.4-powered enterprise tools.
