OpenAI Weighs a Private Round at About $1.5 Trillion Before a 2027 IPO

OpenAI is considering one more private funding round before its IPO, at a valuation of about $1.5 trillion, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. That would roughly double the $730 billion pre-money valuation from its last round and make it the world’s most valuable privately held company. The people stressed that no decisions have been made, according to a roundup by The Next Web.

Investors came with $1.2 trillion

The Financial Times first reported on Sept. 15 that OpenAI had held early talks with large investors about a round at about $1.2 trillion, and that investors had started those conversations. OpenAI thinks it deserves at least $1.5 trillion, citing demand for its Codex coding tool and its latest models, GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol.

CNBC’s sources described it differently: investors had floated proposals, some pitched as a way for employees to sell shares, but no formal talks were underway. “We still have an incredible balance sheet,” CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC’s Jim Cramer. In August, OpenAI completed a secondary share sale of about $7 billion.

Any decision depends on IPO timing, a person familiar with the talks told Bloomberg. The extra money could let OpenAI push its listing back by a quarter or two and fund more acquisitions. OpenAI confidentially filed a draft prospectus with the SEC in June, so it has to be careful about what confidential information it shares with prospective investors.

No IPO this year

“Right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public,” CEO Sam Altman told Fortune on Sept. 12, citing AI safety. The Times reported that OpenAI had already shelved plans for a 2026 listing to shore up its finances. In August, Friar told staff OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027,” CNBC reported.

The numbers

OpenAI has raised more than $180 billion since its 2015 founding, including $122 billion in March from investors such as Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, which valued it at $852 billion post-money. Annualized revenue topped $40 billion in August, roughly double the level at the end of 2025, and quarterly revenue rose from $5.7 billion in the first quarter to $6.7 billion in the second. Its operating margin fell, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A round of this size could put OpenAI ahead of Anthropic, which raised at a $965 billion valuation in May and has picked Nasdaq for an IPO that could come as soon as October, Bloomberg reported.