OpenAI is trying to speed up a funding round of about $30bn to secure investor commitments before Anthropic lists its shares in mid-November. The round could value the ChatGPT maker at more than $ 1.4 trillion.
Reuters reported the plan on Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter. OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment to Reuters, while Anthropic and MGX did not immediately respond.
The talks build on the $1.4tn funding round first reported in early October. OpenAI was last valued at $852bn in March, after a $122bn round that included up to $50bn from Amazon.
According to Reuters, SoftBank Group and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, both existing OpenAI backers, are in talks to join. OpenAI also met long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds last week, while Anthropic held its own investor day.
Both companies are courting much the same investors. As a result, some investors see OpenAI’s timing as an attempt to lock in money that might otherwise go into Anthropic’s listing, Reuters reported.
Revenue figures are part of the contest. OpenAI says its annualised revenue reached $50bn after launching its GPT-6 Astra model, and it expects $70bn by the end of the year, one person said. Earlier Reuters reporting put Anthropic’s annualised revenue at about $65bn by July.
However, the two companies count revenue differently. OpenAI books sales after subtracting the share kept by partners, and it has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by counting the full value of contracts sold through cloud providers. Anthropic told Reuters earlier that it follows established accounting practices.
Anthropic’s own price is also under pressure. The company told investors its third-quarter revenue rose to $16.8bn from $11.6bn in the second quarter. After those results fell short of expectations, some investors argued for a debut valuation near $1.5tn rather than the $2tn Anthropic wants, Reuters reported last week.
“It’s really a two-horse race in terms of being public,” Edward Best, a capital markets lawyer at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is planning its own listing for 2027. The new money would help it meet infrastructure commitments and strengthen its finances if a weaker IPO market delays that plan, according to Reuters.
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