OpenAI closed the largest private funding round in Silicon Valley’s history Tuesday, raising $122 billion at a post-money valuation of $852 billion — and opening its books to retail investors for the first time as it builds toward what could be an equally record-breaking IPO.
The round grew from the $110 billion OpenAI announced in February, when Amazon committed $50 billion, Nvidia and SoftBank each committed $30 billion, and the company was valued at $730 billion pre-money. The additional $12 billion came from a broader pool that includes Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, T. Rowe Price, and Microsoft, whose investment amount OpenAI did not disclose.
About $3 billion of the total came from individual investors via bank channels — the first time OpenAI has extended participation to retail participants. The company also expanded its revolving credit facility to approximately $4.7 billion, supported by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
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Not all of Amazon’s $50 billion commitment arrives immediately. Bloomberg reported that $15 billion will be committed upfront, with the remaining $35 billion contingent on certain conditions being met. As part of the deal, OpenAI is expanding its existing AWS partnership by $100 billion over eight years and has committed to consuming at least 2 gigawatts of AWS compute capacity.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said Tuesday the company is “starting to build that outcome” toward a public listing, adding that the funding round “derisks somewhat” the path to public markets. Media reports point to a Q4 2026 IPO target, which would require OpenAI to complete its legal transition from a nonprofit structure and file audited financials publicly for the first time.
The decision to bring in retail investors — and to include OpenAI in several ARK Invest-managed ETFs — reads less like conventional venture financing and more like early IPO groundwork, broadening the company’s shareholder base ahead of a listing. TechCrunch noted that the round is as much about anchoring public market expectations as it is about the capital itself. Rival Anthropic is also reportedly targeting a 2026 public offering.
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OpenAI disclosed it now generates $2 billion in revenue per month, up from $13.1 billion for all of last year. The company is still not profitable. Enterprise customers account for 40% of revenue, up from 30% a year ago, and OpenAI says that share is on track to reach parity with consumer revenue by the end of 2026.
To accelerate that shift, OpenAI shut down its Sora video app and has been narrowing its focus toward enterprise tools, coding assistants, and what it is calling a productivity-focused “superapp.” CEO Sam Altman also walked back earlier infrastructure ambitions — OpenAI now targets approximately $600 billion in total compute spending by 2030, down from the $1.4 trillion figure Altman cited last year.
The scaled-back spending target has done little to ease concerns about cash burn. Internal projections cited by The Information show OpenAI burning $25 billion in 2026 and $57 billion in 2027, with cumulative compute spending reaching $665 billion through 2030 — $111 billion more than previously forecast, driven by inference costs that quadrupled in 2025.
“The capital being deployed today is helping build the infrastructure layer for intelligence itself,” OpenAI said in a statement Tuesday. “Over time, that value will flow back into the economy, to companies, to communities, and increasingly to individuals.”
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