OpenAI Just Raised $11 Billion at a $1.25 Trillion Valuation, Below the $1.4 Trillion It First Sought
OpenAI got its money, but not on the terms it wanted, and the gap between its growth story and investor appetite is landing on two giants. One faces a bookkeeping hit, the other a deeper dependency on the funding flow.
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About $11 billion in new money reached OpenAI’s accounts by Friday, November 6, 2026, people familiar with the deal said. That cash is the first part of a round priced at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, a figure the company’s CFO, Sarah Friar, confirmed in a TV interview. OpenAI declined to comment on the funding.
Press reports said OpenAI first set out to raise $30 billion or more at a $1.4 trillion valuation. Two investors put the first ask at $1.5 trillion. Friar challenged that account on air, saying the higher figure started with a media report and never came from OpenAI.
Whichever starting point you accept. The round ended up smaller and cheaper after AI stocks sold off, even as OpenAI says its business is accelerating. That gap affects shareholders of Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction ) and NVIDIA ( NASDAQ:NVDA ) because both depend on OpenAI’s ability to fund its plans.
Cash Wired Versus Cash Promised
The closed amount covers about 37% of the original target. SoftBank and Abu Dhabi’s MGX took part in the round.
The rest could lift the total to as much as $20 billion, and a separate report put the follow-on at up to another $9 billion. That second portion has not closed. Lead investors, terms, and use of proceeds were not disclosed.
Friar called the price almost 50% above March, when OpenAI raised $122 billion at $852 billion. The implied step-up is roughly 46.7%, but treat it as approximate, because her figure is pre-money and March’s basis is unclear.
Growth Claims Meet a Tighter Market
Friar said OpenAI’s business grew 70% quarter over quarter in the third quarter, its enterprise business doubled, and revenue splits about 50% each between consumer and enterprise. She cited 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users and an ads run rate of $1 billion by August.
She gave no revenue dollar figures. Asked about the election, she said, “The demand for AI is real.”
Investors still paid less than the earliest reported asking price. Rival Anthropic plans to list on Nasdaq in mid-November. Some investors now value it at about $1.5 trillion, down from roughly $2 trillion in earlier expectations.
Microsoft Feels This Through GAAP Earnings
Microsoft closed at $530.61, down 0.99%, for a market value of $3.94 trillion. The funding report came out around the close, so that move had other causes.
Gains on the OpenAI stake added $207 million to GAAP net income in the September quarter, compared with $3.1 billion in net losses a year earlier. A smaller valuation increase reduces future gains on the stake, although that is minor next to 48% Azure growth.
NVIDIA Depends on This Money Flowing
NVIDIA rose 2.78% to $186.64 as chip stocks rallied, and Oracle ( NYSE:ORCL ) added 0.78%. NVIDIA is still down 21.4% over one month.
NVIDIA has said OpenAI’s existing and planned commitments add up to about 12 gigawatts of its compute. Management also said frontier labs “are growing faster than what their balance sheets and credit profiles can support.” A round that fills in stages shows that strain.
What OpenAI’s Smaller Round Means for AI Stock Investors
The optimistic view is that demand still exceeds supply. Microsoft says it has more demand than capacity, and NVIDIA guided to $108.0 billion in third-quarter revenue.
The bearish argument depends on financing. Private valuations can drop further, the second portion may close below full size, and a weak Anthropic debut could pull both labs’ valuations down.
Microsoft looks less exposed to OpenAI’s funding pace than NVIDIA, because OpenAI affects its accounting gains far more than the cloud business behind its earnings. NVIDIA is more exposed to how well the labs can raise money.
Two milestones will test this view: whether OpenAI’s round reaches $20 billion, and whether NVIDIA meets its guidance when it reports on Tuesday, November 17.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
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