OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has closed the first $11 billion of a new funding round that values it at $1.25 trillion, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters published on Friday, 6 November 2026.
The money is the first portion of a round that could grow to about $20 billion in the coming weeks, the reports said, citing people familiar with the matter. It is the largest valuation ever placed on a private technology company, and it comes at a moment when investors are asking harder questions about how much the artificial intelligence boom is really worth.
The round that has landed is much smaller — and cheaper — than the one OpenAI first set out to raise. In late September, Bloomberg reported that the company was seeking $30 billion or more at a $1.4 trillion valuation. Two investors told Reuters that OpenAI had initially aimed even higher, at as much as $1.5 trillion. By late October, the Financial Times reported that the fundraising target had been cut to $20 billion. Now the first $11 billion has been wired at the $1.25 trillion price, with the rest expected to follow.
SoftBank and MGX, the Abu Dhabi-backed investment group, took part in the first close, two investors told Reuters. Other investors named in the reports include Coatue Management and T. Rowe Price, with Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz also said to be involved. None of the firms named has publicly confirmed the terms, and OpenAI declined to comment on the reports.
Why the valuation matters
A $1.25 trillion valuation would make OpenAI worth more than most public companies in the world, despite the fact that it remains a private business. The figure is a negotiated price between the company and its investors, not a market price — but it is still the clearest signal yet of how much money the world’s biggest investors are willing to put behind the company that turned chatbots into a mainstream product.
The valuation is also a step up from OpenAI’s last completed round. In March 2026, the company said it had closed a round with $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation. The new price is roughly 47 percent higher than that March figure, even after the cuts to the round’s size.
OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, spoke about the fundraising on CNBC on 6 November and confirmed that the round was ongoing, without giving figures. The company has said it is now generating $2 billion in revenue per month, and Bloomberg reported in October that it expects $70 billion in annualised revenue by the end of 2026.
A cooler market for AI
The funding landed after a month in which enthusiasm for AI stocks has cooled noticeably. Shares in AI-related companies have fallen from their highs, and investors have started to question whether the enormous spending on data centres and computing power will pay off quickly enough.
That cooling is visible across the sector. Anthropic, OpenAI’s closest rival, is preparing a public listing that some investors have valued at about $1.5 trillion — below earlier expectations of roughly $2 trillion. The message from the market is consistent: the biggest AI companies can still raise very large sums, but no longer on quite the terms they wanted a few months ago.
For OpenAI, the smaller round still leaves it with far more cash than almost any private company has ever raised. The money is expected to fund the computing infrastructure behind ChatGPT and its newer products, including the company’s push into AI agents that can carry out tasks on a user’s behalf, and its growing work on video and image generation.
What it means for users in Pakistan
ChatGPT is one of the most widely used AI tools in Pakistan, where students, freelancers, developers and small businesses use it for study, coding, writing and customer support. A bigger war chest for OpenAI means faster development of the tools those users rely on — but it also raises the stakes in the race to build AI that works well in languages beyond English, including Urdu.
Pakistani startups building on top of OpenAI’s models will be watching the funding closely. The company’s pricing, its access rules for developers and the pace at which it releases new models all shape what local businesses can build, and a $1.25 trillion valuation makes OpenAI’s decisions matter even more for the whole AI ecosystem.
The round is not finished yet. If the remaining roughly $9 billion closes in the coming weeks as reported, OpenAI will have raised about $20 billion in a single round — still one of the largest private fundraisings in history, even if it is a third less than the company first asked for.
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