OpenAI has banked its first big slice of new funding – just not at the price it wanted. The company closed an $11 billion first tranche on November 6 at a $1.25 trillion valuation, according to Bloomberg, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, with funds wired the same day.
The full round has not closed. The remaining tranche is expected to land in the coming weeks and could grow to roughly $20 billion, but the headline valuation tells the story: OpenAI’s $1.25 trillion mark sits below the $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion it was originally shopping.
$11 billion now, more to come
SoftBank and MGX are anchoring the round, with Coatue Management and a syndicate of UAE-based investors joining the first close. The original ambition was $30 billion or more; the round was trimmed as AI-linked public stocks sold off and investors began asking pointed questions about data-center spending and post-midterm buildout risk.
OpenAI has also postponed IPO plans while confidentially filing a prospectus with the SEC – a company can be valued at $1.25 trillion and still be waiting for the right window to knock on public markets.
Why the valuation came down
Timing. The deal was negotiated during a brutal stretch for AI equities: the Nasdaq 100 fell 6.4% on November 5 after midterm results sharpened worries over AI data-center policy, and local ballot measures restricting data centers passed in 40 of 41 cases across 10 states.
Repricing is not confined to OpenAI either. Anthropic’s next valuation is now being discussed around $1.1 trillion by some investors, down from roughly $2 trillion expected a month earlier. When both of the sector’s flagships get marked down in the same month, it is not a company story – it is a market story.
The bigger AI funding reset
For context, OpenAI raised $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation in March 2026. Eight months later, it is taking money at $1.25 trillion – still enormous growth, but a pace that now depends on closing the rest of the round on the current terms.
The lesson from this first tranche is straightforward: capital is still available for AI’s leaders, but the blank-check era is being repriced one wire transfer at a time.
