Article 304: OpenAI Is Racing a $30 Billion Round to $1.4 Trillion - Before Anthropic's Numbers Go Public

Reuters reported on Monday that OpenAI is trying to close a round of roughly $30 billion at a valuation above $1.4 trillion before Anthropic's expected public debut in mid-November, with SoftBank, Abu Dhabi's MGX and existing backers in talks. The timetable is unusually fast for an offering of that size, and the reason given by two people familiar with the matter is competitive: OpenAI held meetings with long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds last week while Anthropic was running its own investor day, and the two labs are now drawing on the same pool of capital.

The pitch is growth. OpenAI says it has reached $50 billion in annualised revenue and expects $70 billion by year-end, crediting its GPT-6 Astra launch, and has told investors it can lower model prices further. Anthropic reached roughly $65 billion annualised by July and told investors quarterly revenue rose to $16.8 billion in Q3 from $11.6 billion in Q2, but slowing month-to-month growth has raised valuation questions - some investors now argue for about $1.5 trillion rather than the desired $2 trillion. OpenAI records revenue net, subtracting partner shares upfront, and has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by counting the gross value of contracts sold through third-party clouds. Anthropic says it follows established accounting practice. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion in March.

Key Takeaway: This is a filing-timing story dressed as a fundraising story. OpenAI is not just raising money; it is trying to fix a valuation before a competitor's disclosures create a benchmark it cannot control - "OpenAI could want to set its own valuation and not have to worry about a comp," as one capital-markets lawyer put it. The accounting dispute is the sharper tell: net versus gross revenue is a legitimate disagreement and also the exact lever that makes two trillion-dollar valuations comparable or not. Meanwhile the backdrop is deteriorating. CoreWeave's equity and debt fell last week on scrutiny of nearly $50 billion in borrowings; AirTrunk REIT, Firmus and SB Energy have pulled or paused listings; Holtec called it a "perfect storm" when it withdrew; and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has shed $1.6 trillion in under two weeks. Both labs are raising into a narrowing window rather than a widening one. Whoever prices first sets the number everyone else has to defend - which is a strange thing to be racing toward, and precisely why they are racing.

Sources: Reuters, "Exclusive: OpenAI seeks to accelerate fundraising ahead of Anthropic IPO", 19 October 2026; Financial Times