OpenAI Races Anthropic to the Vault: A $30 Billion Sprint Before the IPO
OpenAI is racing to lock in investor commitments before rival Anthropic's expected public debut in mid-November, Reuters reported exclusively on Oct 19, citing two people familiar with the matter. The round, worth about $30 billion, is moving faster than is typical for an offering of its size — a deliberate sprint to get funded before Anthropic's roadshow absorbs the market's attention and capital.
The round could value the ChatGPT maker at more than $1.4 trillion, the sources said. That would be a jump of over 60% from March, when OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion after a record $122 billion funding round that included Amazon's commitment to invest up to $50 billion. OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment; Anthropic and MGX did not respond.
OpenAI is pitching growth reignited by its GPT-6 Astra model, launched Sept 3. One source said the company told investors it had reached $50 billion in annualized revenue and expects $70 billion by year-end. It also said price cuts on cheaper models boosted usage and that model costs can fall further. Bloomberg separately reported end-September annualized revenue of roughly $50 billion, driven by enterprise demand.
SoftBank Group, Abu Dhabi-based MGX and other existing backers are in talks to join, one person said. Last week, while Anthropic hosted its investor day, OpenAI held meetings with long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds. Some investors read the push as an attempt to tie up capital from funds that might otherwise allocate to Anthropic's IPO — the two labs increasingly fish in the same investor pool.
The urgency is not only competitive. People familiar with the company say OpenAI needs cash to fund heavy infrastructure commitments and to strengthen its balance sheet in case IPO-market weakness delays its own planned 2027 listing. The backdrop is unforgiving: rising rates, volatile tech stocks, and several pulled or paused listings in recent weeks.
Comparison is the risk OpenAI wants to dodge. Reuters previously reported Anthropic's annualized revenue reached roughly $65 billion by July. OpenAI has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by booking the full gross value of contracts sold through third-party cloud providers; Anthropic told Reuters it follows established accounting practices. Closing before Anthropic's fuller disclosures, one source said, avoids inviting that side-by-side math.
Anthropic's own numbers set a high bar. At its Oct 14 San Francisco investor day it reported third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion, up about 45% from roughly $11.5 billion in Q2, profitable on an adjusted basis, with Q1 at $4.7 billion against under $4.6 billion for all of 2025. Valued at $965 billion in its May Series H, it seeks more than $2 trillion at IPO, though some investors argue for around $1.5 trillion after sequential growth slowed from a doubling in Q2. The roadshow is expected the week of Nov 9, with trading possibly before Thanksgiving on Nov 26.
What comes next is a two-step test: can OpenAI secure commitments before mid-November, and at what price does Anthropic's roadshow clear? With both labs asking trillion-dollar valuations from overlapping funds within weeks, a stumble on either side reprices the other. The fundraising calendar is now part of the contest.