Analysis
OpenAI's previously reported $30 billion funding round has a new valuation attached: TechCrunch reported on October 22, 2026 that the round is now being discussed at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, down from the $1.4 trillion figure Bloomberg reported about a month earlier. Pulse covered an earlier version of this raise in our October 20 coverage -- what's changed since then is the price and, for the first time, a named lead investor and a new source of money.
Coatue is now reported as the round's lead investor, with UAE-based investors also participating -- the first time the UAE side of this raise has been confirmed rather than rumored. Per CNBC, the UAE commitment could be paired with a separate agreement giving OpenAI more computing capacity sourced from the UAE, tying the fundraise to compute access rather than cash alone. OpenAI's March 2026 round had valued the company at $852 billion post-money, and the company filed confidentially for an IPO in June -- the same month Anthropic did.
“OpenAI's March 2026 round had valued the company at $852 billion post-money, and the company filed confidentially for an IPO in June -- the same month Anthropic did.”
The $150 billion valuation haircut between the two reports -- $1.4 trillion down to $1.25 trillion -- is a bigger swing than the headline number alone suggests: it's larger than Anthropic's entire $965 billion private valuation from May. Anthropic, which Pulse has tracked seeking a $1.5 to $2 trillion IPO price per CNBC, remains the closer comparison; both companies are now choosing to raise private mega-rounds rather than rush their confidential S-1 filings to market.
Terms on OpenAI's round are still being negotiated and OpenAI declined to comment, so both the $30 billion size and the $1.25 trillion price could move again before anything closes.