Valuation & funding

OpenAI's valuation: $1.25T

OpenAI's November 2026 round valued it at $1.25T pre-money, up from $852B in March 2026. Here's the full funding history and what's behind the number.

Latest valuation $1.25T November 2026 pre-money
Market cap After IPO
Revenue run-rate $70B annualized (End Sep 2026)
Implied multiple ~18× valuation / run-rate

Figures as of November 2026. Valuation is the most recent round (post-money unless marked pre-money); run-rate is an annualized figure.

Does OpenAI have a market cap?

OpenAI's most recent round valuation is $1.25T, set by its funding round in November 2026. That is the figure most people are after when they search for its market cap. A true market cap only exists once a company's shares trade publicly, which won't happen until OpenAI's IPO.

Funding round history

Every disclosed round, newest first, with the valuation it set. Valuations are post-money unless marked pre-money.

OpenAI funding rounds: amounts and valuations (USD).
Round Date Raised Valuation Lead investors
November 2026 round November 2026 $11B $1.25T pre-money SoftBank, MGX
March 2026 round March 2026 $122B $852B SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG
Recapitalization & tender October 2025 – $500B Thrive Capital, SoftBank
SoftBank-led round March 2025 $40B $300B SoftBank
November 2026 round November 2026
$1.25T pre-money

$11B raised · led by SoftBank, MGX

First close of a round that set out to raise more than $30B and was scaled back after a sell-off in AI stocks. Reported at a $1.25T valuation; CFO Sarah Friar described it as a pre-money figure and the round as still open, with up to about $20B in total expected.

March 2026 round March 2026
$852B

$122B raised · led by SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG

Co-led by SoftBank with a16z, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price-advised accounts. Strategic partners Amazon ($50B), NVIDIA ($30B), and Microsoft also participated. The largest single private financing on record; at least $35B of the headline figure is contingent.

Recapitalization & tender October 2025
$500B

Converted the for-profit into OpenAI Group PBC, controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation (which holds equity worth ~$130B). An employee tender offer let staff sell shares at a ~$500B valuation. Microsoft's stake was aligned to the new PBC structure at roughly 27%.

SoftBank-led round March 2025
$300B

$40B raised · led by SoftBank

SoftBank led the then-largest private tech round, with participation from Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive Capital.

The price per share in each of these rounds, and every employee share sale, is on OpenAI's share price page.

Earlier funding, 2015 to 2024

Before the rounds above, OpenAI was funded by founding pledges to the nonprofit, then by Microsoft, then by its first large venture round. Amounts include tranches paid over time; much of Microsoft's money came as cloud credits.

OpenAI's earlier funding (USD).
Round Date Raised Valuation Lead investors Notes
October 2024 round October 2024 $6.6B $157B Thrive Capital Microsoft, Nvidia and SoftBank also took part; investors could claw money back if OpenAI did not convert to a for-profit company.
Microsoft January 2023 $10B Not disclosed Microsoft A multi-year investment two months after ChatGPT launched, with Microsoft entitled to a share of OpenAI's profits.
Microsoft 2021 $2B Not disclosed Microsoft Further Microsoft funding through 2022, largely in cloud credits.
Microsoft July 2019 $1B Not disclosed Microsoft Followed the creation of a capped-profit company under the nonprofit; Azure became OpenAI's exclusive cloud.
Founding pledges December 2015 $1B Not disclosed Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, others Pledged to the nonprofit at its launch; only about $133M had actually arrived by 2021.

Who these investors are, and what they own today, is on the investors page.

Revenue trajectory

Annualized run-rate revenue, the metric most often cited for OpenAI.

  • 2023 $2B
  • 2024 $6B
  • End 2025 $20B
  • Feb 2026 $25B
  • End Jul 2026 $40B
  • End Sep 2026 $70B
Behind the number

What drives OpenAI's valuation

OpenAI's valuation went from $157 billion in October 2024 to $1.25T pre-money in November 2026, more than 7 times higher in 25 months. Revenue grew quickly over the same period, from about $6 billion annualized at the end of 2024 to tens of billions, but the valuation grew faster.

At $1.25T on a run-rate of $70B, OpenAI is valued at about 18 times annualized revenue. Treat that as a rough yardstick: a run-rate annualizes a recent month, and the valuation is a figure negotiated in a private round.

Investors are paying for reach. ChatGPT has the largest audience in AI, and OpenAI's bet is that it can turn more than a billion weekly users into subscription, enterprise and advertising revenue on a scale only Google and Meta have reached before.

They are also underwriting a very large spending plan. OpenAI's compute commitments run far ahead of its revenue, so the valuation assumes growth big enough to pay for them. Reports in April 2026 that it had missed internal revenue targets showed how sensitive the number is to that assumption.

How does OpenAI's valuation compare to Anthropic's?

Rival Anthropic overtook OpenAI's private valuation for the first time in May 2026, at $965B. OpenAI's November 2026 round put it back in front, and OpenAI remains the larger consumer business.

Private AI labs: valuation vs annualized revenue run-rate.
Company Valuation Revenue run-rate Implied multiple As of
OpenAI (this page) $1.25T $70B ~18× November 2026
Anthropic $965B $65B ~15× July 2026

Sources: latest funding rounds and Sacra reporting. Private valuations are set at funding events, not by a live market.

More on Anthropic's valuation, IPO, and how to invest is available at Anthropic Stock.

Read the full valuation analysis →

How a private valuation is set

A private company's valuation is the price agreed in its latest funding round, applied to all its shares. The post-money figure includes the money just raised. It is negotiated between the company and a small group of investors, not set by a market that trades every day. A pre-money figure, like the $1.25 trillion reported for OpenAI's November 2026 round, leaves the new money out.

OpenAI's valuations come with unusual fine print. Until October 2025, investors bought into a capped-profit company whose returns were limited, and the October 2024 round let investors ask for their money back if OpenAI did not convert to a conventional for-profit structure. Large parts of recent rounds are also conditional: at least $35 billion of the March 2026 round depends on conditions being met.

Employees have sold shares at set prices in tender offers, to investors at about $500 billion in October 2025 and back to OpenAI itself, about $7 billion's worth at $852 billion, in August 2026. Shares also change hands on secondary markets, usually only for professional investors. Those prices are not an official valuation.

What changes at the IPO

Once OpenAI lists, its value will be set every trading day by its share price times the number of shares: its market capitalization. Sam Altman was reported to want more than $1 trillion at listing; the November 2026 private round already priced OpenAI above that, and with the listing expected in 2027 at the earliest, more private rounds may come first.

Two features will make the comparison with private rounds less direct: the OpenAI Foundation's control of the board and its warrant for extra shares, and Microsoft's revenue share through 2030. Both affect what an ordinary share is entitled to.

Follow the listing on the IPO page.