OpenAI races to raise $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation before Anthropic lists

OpenAI is racing to secure investor commitments before rival Anthropic’s initial public offering, Reuters reported on Monday, citing sources¹. The round is for $30 billion, The Next Web reported², at a valuation of $1.4 trillion, according to Gizmodo and Calcalist^3,4. OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment on the report⁴. Gizmodo framed the effort as OpenAI looking to hurry and get valued at $1.4 trillion before the Anthropic IPO³, and The Next Web described a race to close the round before the listing².

AI Magazine has put OpenAI’s valuation at US$852bn, alongside its billion users and the Stargate project, so the new round would mark a large step up^4,7.

Why it matters to investors

The race sets the two leading AI labs against each other for the same pool of capital. Semafor reported that Anthropic could be the AI trade’s last tentpole IPO in 2026, after market jitters forced several AI and fintech companies to reconsider their listing plans for this year⁵. The Financial Times, under the headline “Waiting for good IPO”, pictured Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei⁶.

Ownership details of Anthropic are starting to surface ahead of the listing. Reuters, citing Bloomberg, reported that former Google chief executive Schmidt owns a 1% stake in the company⁸.

Not every analyst is enthusiastic. D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria said Anthropic will end up being a very speculative investment¹⁰. The appetite for big AI listings has already been tested elsewhere: Bloomberg Tech reported that Nscale’s ambition for a $30 billion IPO has met investor pushback⁹.

What to watch

The sequencing matters for price. If OpenAI closes its round first, at $1.4 trillion, it sets a private benchmark against which Anthropic’s public valuation will be read^1,4. If the round slips past the Anthropic listing, the comparison runs the other way¹.

The other signal is the reception of AI offerings in general. Semafor’s report that several companies have reconsidered their plans, and the pushback Nscale has met, point to a choosier public market^5,9. Whether the Anthropic listing goes ahead on schedule will be the clearest test of that appetite this year^5,6.

The source of the money is the other open question. Calcalist reported that SoftBank declined to comment alongside OpenAI, and the reports do not say who is committing the $30 billion^2,4.