On March 31, OpenAI officially closed this funding round. $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation — no private company has ever achieved this scale.
Who Is Putting Up the Money
Three main players: Amazon $50 billion, Nvidia $30 billion, SoftBank $30 billion.
One detail in Amazon's $50 billion: $35 billion is conditional on OpenAI completing an IPO or achieving AGI (artificial general intelligence). In other words, Amazon is betting on one of two outcomes: OpenAI either goes public or actually builds general intelligence. Neither is a small wager.
SoftBank's $30 billion is an unsecured bridge loan with a 12-month term. Masayoshi Son's style — fast in, fast out.
There is also a move rarely seen before: OpenAI opened a retail investor channel for the first time, raising more than $3 billion in individual investments through banks. Ordinary investors could buy in before the company goes public — also a warm-up for the IPO.
The major institutional investors in the primary market read like a who's who of the AI world: a16z, Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Coatue, BlackRock, Blackstone, Tiger Global — essentially every name you can think of is there.
OpenAI's Current Financial Picture
Monthly revenue of $2 billion, 900 million weekly active users on ChatGPT, over 50 million paid subscribers, and enterprise customers now account for more than 40% of total revenue.
These numbers would have been almost unimaginable in 2023, when OpenAI's annual revenue was just a few hundred million. In three years, explosive growth.
IPO on the Horizon
According to Reuters, the earliest possible timeline is the second half of 2026, with a valuation target of $1 trillion.
Given the current post-money valuation of $852 billion, there may still be some time before the IPO, but the direction is clear. OpenAI itself said in its announcement:
Moments like this don't come often. In past generations, capital markets helped build the infrastructure that defined modern economies — electricity, highways, the internet. This time, it's that kind of moment again.
This language goes beyond a fundraising pitch; it reads more like a declaration of historical positioning.
Is This Valuation Reasonable?
With $2 billion in monthly revenue, that's roughly $24 billion annualized. $852 billion divided by $24 billion gives a P/E ratio of about 35x.
For a high-growth tech company, 35x is not outrageous, but this is calculated on current revenue. The issues are:
- OpenAI's expenses are equally staggering. Computing power, data centers, talent — the money it burns each year is not less than what it earns.
- Competition is intensifying. Google, Anthropic, Meta are not pushovers.
- Regulatory risks are growing. Both the EU and the US are watching closely.
Optimists would say: This is a bet on the next five to ten years, not on current earnings multiples. Pessimists would say: Every "this time is different" story in history has ended similarly.
What the Money Is For
Officially: AI chips, data center expansion, top talent recruitment.
In reality, the sheer size of this funding round goes beyond burning cash — it looks more like building an infrastructure monopoly: whoever controls enough computing power holds the ticket to the next generation of AI training.
The Stargate project — a data center construction plan jointly undertaken by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank — is the concrete manifestation of this direction.
Sources: OpenAI raises $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation, closing largest funding round in history (Yahoo Finance); OpenAI, not yet public, raises $3B from retail investors in monster $122B fund raise (TechCrunch); CocoLoop; OpenAI raises $122 billion to accelerate the next phase of AI (OpenAI official blog)