OpenAI is trying to lock in investor commitments before Anthropic’s expected market debut in mid-November. Reuters reports this after speaking to two people familiar with the matter. The round sits at roughly $30 billion and would value OpenAI at more than $1.4 trillion. SoftBank, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and other existing backers are in talks to join.
The timetable is unusually fast for a raise this size, and that is the whole point. Both labs are now reaching into the same pool of capital. Whoever gets there first ties up money that might otherwise go to the other offering.
What OpenAI is telling investors
OpenAI is pitching the growth that followed the launch of GPT-6 Astra: $50 billion in annualized revenue, rising to $70 billion by year-end. It also argues that cutting prices on its cheaper models boosted usage, and that prices can come down further.
Anthropic was at about $65 billion annualized in July. Quarterly revenue jumped to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, up from $11.6 billion in the second. But slowing month-to-month growth is exactly where investors have started hesitating on the valuation.
Comparison is the real problem
Reuters names the actual reason for the hurry: OpenAI wants to be done before Anthropic’s financial disclosures give investors a fuller picture and invite a side-by-side look. At that point the same people might press CFO Sarah Friar for details on OpenAI’s own numbers.
Underneath sits an accounting fight. OpenAI books revenue net, subtracting partner shares upfront. Anthropic counts the full gross value of contracts sold through third-party clouds. OpenAI calls that inflated; Anthropic says it follows established practice.
“OpenAI could want to set its own valuation and not have to worry about a comp,” says Edward Best, co-chair of capital markets at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who is not working on the deal. “It’s really a two-horse race in terms of being public.”
The IPO calendar now runs on Anthropic’s clock
OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion in March, after a record $122 billion round that included a commitment of up to $50 billion from Amazon. Its own listing is planned for 2027. If markets sour further, the company also needs the cash for its infrastructure commitments and its balance sheet.
The rest of the calendar has already rearranged itself. Several candidates are waiting until Anthropic is through, and late-stage private rounds are being timed around the same date. AirTrunk REIT, Firmus and SB Energy have pulled or paused their listings; nuclear services firm Holtec cited a “perfect storm” of uncertainty over data-center demand. Companies in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index have shed $1.6 trillion in under two weeks, and CoreWeave’s shares and debt tumbled over nearly $50 billion in borrowings.
This is what a market looks like when two companies want trillion-dollar price tags at the same time: everyone else queues up behind them, and the real question is not who is worth more. It is who gets to count first, on their own terms.