OpenAI races to secure additional investment ahead of rival Anthropic’s IPO

[Financial News] OpenAI is racing to wrap up a large new investment round quickly ahead of the expected IPO next month of its AI competitor Anthropic. If the round is completed, OpenAI’s valuation is expected to exceed $1.4 trillion (about 1,900 trillion won).
Foreign media reported on the 19th (local time) that OpenAI is accelerating its fundraising to capitalize on faster revenue growth following the launch of a new model and gain ground on Anthropic in the AI race. Existing major investors, including Japan’s SoftBank Group and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, are discussing participating in the round, which is expected to raise about $30 billion (about 40 trillion won) in total.
OpenAI said revenue increased significantly following the launch of its new model, GPT-6 Astra. Revenue on an annualized basis reached $50 billion (about 66 trillion won), and the company expects it to rise to $70 billion by year-end. It also said that price cuts to its lower-cost models had sharply increased usage, and that it could further reduce the per-unit cost of AI models in the future.
Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue, by contrast, rose to $16.8 billion from $11.6 billion in the previous quarter, but slower month-to-month growth prompted concerns among investors that the company was overvalued. Anthropic had initially targeted a $2 trillion valuation, but some investors are arguing that its valuation should be revised down to around $1.5 trillion.
OpenAI also cited its own accounting practices as it accused Anthropic of inflating its results by counting the full value of contracts through cloud providers as revenue. Anthropic countered that it follows standard accounting practices.
Another reason OpenAI is rushing to raise funds is to cover its massive AI infrastructure investments and shore up its finances in case a market squeeze delays its planned 2027 IPO. Markets have recently become more volatile amid rising funding costs and the burden of data center investment. Shares and bonds of cloud company CoreWeave, which borrowed about $50 billion to expand its data centers, plunged, while major companies including Holtec and AirTrunk withdrew or postponed their IPOs. The market capitalization of companies in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also fell by $1.6 trillion in just the past two weeks. Capital markets expert and lawyer Edward Best likened the AI sector, in terms of the public-offering market, to “essentially a horse race between two companies,” and said, “OpenAI will want to set its own valuation on its own terms, without worrying about comparisons with its rival.”
As the number of companies that had been expected to go public but have postponed their IPOs has risen in recent weeks, Anthropic is being seen as the last hope for an AI company to pull off a blockbuster IPO this year, with the year nearly over.
Earlier this year, investors were looking forward to IPOs by OpenAI and Anthropic, along with that of space exploration company SpaceX. But in June, only SpaceX raised $75 billion through an IPO; the other anticipated companies postponed their listings.
On the prediction-market platform Kalshi, Anthropic is currently the only one of 23 potential IPO candidates with a probability of going public this year above 50%. The probability that OpenAI will announce an IPO by next June stands at 50%.
[email protected] Yoon Jae-jun Reporter