OpenAI has closed the first $11 billion of its latest funding round, valuing the ChatGPT maker at $1.25 trillion, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters published on Friday, in one of the largest private financings ever raised by a technology company.
The $11 billion represents the first close of a round that is expected to reach about $20 billion once the remaining commitments land in the coming weeks. The money has already been wired to the company, the reports said, citing people familiar with the transaction. Two investors told Reuters that SoftBank and MGX, the Abu Dhabi state-backed fund, took part in the first close.
The round that has landed is considerably smaller, and cheaper, than the one OpenAI first shopped around in September. Bloomberg first reported the fundraising in late September at a target of $30 billion and a valuation of $1.4 trillion, and two investors told Reuters the company had initially sought as much as $1.5 trillion. In late October, the Financial Times reported that the target had been cut to $20 billion after some investors reduced their allocations ahead of a commitment deadline, and the valuation settled at $1.25 trillion.
The shortfall matters because of what it says about the mood around artificial intelligence. After two years in which investors competed fiercely to fund the leading AI labs, the market has cooled. Technology shares have sold off in recent weeks, and the same reports note that some investors in Anthropic, OpenAI's closest rival, have been lowering their expectations for its planned public listing, with one putting the likely range at $1 trillion to $1.25 trillion, down from highs near $2 trillion.
Even at the reduced price, the valuation is a steep climb from OpenAI's last officially announced round. On 31 March 2026, the company said it had closed a round with $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation, anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, with continued participation from Microsoft. The $1.25 trillion figure now reported is about 47 per cent above that March valuation, although Reuters' report does not specify whether the new figure is pre-money or post-money, so the comparison should be treated with care.
OpenAI itself has not published a statement on the terms of the new round, and it did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. Its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, addressed the fundraising on CNBC on 6 November, confirming that the round is ongoing and pushing back against suggestions that the company had scaled back its ambitions. The absence of a company announcement means the figures rest on reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters, citing sources familiar with the deal, rather than on officially disclosed terms.
The investors behind the first close extend existing relationships. SoftBank and MGX were already part of OpenAI's investor base from the March round, in which SoftBank co-led alongside Andreessen Horowitz, D. E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG and funds advised by T. Rowe Price. Reporting on the new round also names investors from the United Arab Emirates as leading the effort, with Coatue, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz among those expected to take part, and OpenAI said to be negotiating a commercial agreement for additional computing capacity from the UAE.
The financing comes at a moment when OpenAI's spending is under intense scrutiny. The company has committed to enormous data-centre and computing deals to train and run its models, and investors have begun asking harder questions about when that spending turns into profit. The scaled-back round suggests that even the world's most sought-after AI company now has to accept smaller cheques and lower prices than it could command a few months ago.
For the wider AI industry, the close is a double signal. On one hand, $11 billion in a single first close confirms that capital is still available in huge quantities for the leading labs. On the other, the cuts to both the target and the valuation show that the era of investors accepting almost any price for AI exposure is over, at least for now. Rival labs, suppliers and the data-centre builders that depend on AI spending will all be reading the same message.
What happens next depends on the remaining $9 billion. If the rest of the round closes in the coming weeks as reported, OpenAI will have $20 billion of fresh capital to fund its computing build-out. If commitments slip further, the company may have to slow its spending plans or return to investors on still less favourable terms. Either way, the November close has set a new, lower benchmark for what the world's most valuable private AI company is worth.
Figures in this report were checked at 15:51 PKT on 07 November 2026 against reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
