OpenAI has secured $11 billion in the first close of a new funding round that values the ChatGPT maker at $1.25 trillion. Bloomberg reported the funding on 6 November, citing people familiar with the matter, and Reuters carried the same report later that day.
The $11 billion is only the opening part of a larger round that has not yet closed. Bloomberg reported that the round could eventually total about $20 billion and is expected to close in the coming weeks.
OpenAI was co-founded in 2015 by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Altman has served as chief executive since 2019 and led the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
A smaller round at a higher price
OpenAI set out in late September to raise $30 billion or more. That target has since been cut to about $20 billion, according to the Financial Times, while the valuation has settled below the $1.4 trillion figure discussed at the start.
The gap between the two numbers tells its own story. Investors are willing to pay more for each share than they were in March, yet they are committing less fresh cash in total than OpenAI first sought.
Chief financial officer Sarah Friar confirmed the shape of the deal on 6 November. Speaking to CNBC, she said OpenAI is raising money at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation. That figure sits about 47 percent above the $852 billion post-money valuation set in March.
One detail still needs care. The Financial Times has described the $1.25 trillion figure as post-money, while Friar described it as pre-money. The two bases value the same company differently, so the headline number is best read as the reported price of the round rather than a settled valuation.
Abu Dhabi’s MGX is in the round
Two investors told Reuters that SoftBank and MGX took part in the first close. Both are returning backers rather than new names on the cap table.
MGX is Abu Dhabi’s artificial intelligence investment arm, set up in March 2024 by Mubadala and G42. Its first fund closed at $49 billion in commitments in July 2026, and OpenAI is already in its portfolio from the March round.
The Abu Dhabi link runs deeper than this one cheque. MGX is a partner in Stargate, the AI infrastructure venture with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which includes a one-gigawatt computing cluster in the UAE.
SoftBank also returns from March, when it anchored the round alongside Amazon and NVIDIA. Its continued presence shows that the largest backers from the last round are still willing to add capital, even at a higher price.
The March round set the benchmark
OpenAI announced on 31 March 2026 that it had closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation. Amazon committed $50 billion, NVIDIA $30 billion and SoftBank $30 billion, with a16z, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG and funds advised by T. Rowe Price also taking part.
The company said at the time that it was generating $2 billion in revenue per month. It also reported more than 900 million weekly active users of ChatGPT and over 50 million subscribers.
That scale explains why the sums keep growing. OpenAI has tied its strategy to durable access to computing power, and each new model generation needs more of it.
A cooler market for AI valuations
The funding landed in a month when enthusiasm for AI stocks cooled. Bloomberg reported that potential buyers of shares in Anthropic’s planned initial public offering are eyeing a valuation as low as about $1.1 trillion, against roughly $2 trillion expected a month earlier.
OpenAI’s own path to the public markets is still open. It filed a confidential draft listing document with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2026. Altman has said the listing will not happen in 2026, and Friar said on 6 November that the company is evaluating a listing in 2027.
What to watch next
The number to watch now is the final total. If the round reaches its revised target of about $20 billion, OpenAI will have raised less than it first sought but at a markedly higher price. If commitments stall near $11 billion, the gap will say more about investor caution than any single valuation can.
