OpenAI Closes $122B Round at $852B Valuation
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- OpenAI closed a $122B funding round at an $852B post-money valuation, led by SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and others, after previously announcing the round would total $110B
- OpenAI raised $3B from individual retail investors via banks despite not yet being publicly listed, a structure TechCrunch and Capital Brief flagged as unusual for a pre-IPO company
- The Verge reports OpenAI now claims 900 million weekly ChatGPT users, the usage figure being used to anchor the valuation
- Constellation Research notes OpenAI is touting $2 billion in revenue per month alongside the fundraising announcement
- Andrew Yang observed on X that the vast majority of the $122B comes from just three of OpenAI's biggest partners, a concentration point echoed in skeptic commentary
- Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is handling legal work for the round, per Bloomberg Law — a firm typically associated with IPO-grade transactions
- Skeptics including Ed Zitron drew direct parallels to WeWork and Uber pre-IPO capital grabs, a counter-frame largely absent from mainstream coverage of the round
Why it matters: OpenAI's $852B valuation rests on 900M weekly ChatGPT users and $2B/month in claimed revenue, but $3B sourced from retail investors pre-IPO — a structure flagged by TechCrunch, Capital Brief, and The Information — blurs the line between private fundraising and a public offering, while concentration among a handful of lead partners raises the question of who is left to buy at the next mark-up.
