OpenAI Cuts Its Round to $20bn at a $1.25tn Valuation
The Financial Times reported on 30 October 2026 that OpenAI had reduced its fundraising target by $10bn and its valuation by $150bn. CNBC confirmed the smaller figure on 31 October, on the same day the Nasdaq closed its worst month in over a year.
OpenAI has cut the target for its current funding round by $10bn and the valuation attached to it by $150bn. The company is now seeking about $20bn at a $1.25 trillion valuation, against $30bn at $1.4 trillion a month ago, the Financial Times reported on 30 October 2026, citing people with knowledge of the matter. CNBC said on 31 October that it had confirmed the $20bn figure with a person directly familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named and said the round is still in progress, has not closed, and that the figures are subject to change. OpenAI did not respond to CNBC's request for comment, and declined to comment to the FT.
Every number here rests on unnamed sources. No filing, no company statement and no confirmed close exists, and the one firm detail about the process reported by the FT, a Friday deadline for investors to commit, has now passed without a public result.
Who is still in
A group of investors from the United Arab Emirates, including the state-backed technology fund MGX, is expected to be the largest participant, according to the FT. SoftBank Group and the venture firms Sequoia Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz also plan to participate. The FT reported that some investors had reduced their commitments. OpenAI, Sequoia, Founders Fund and SoftBank declined to comment to the paper; MGX, Coatue and Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately respond to it.
The direction matters more than the absolute figure. OpenAI raised $122bn in March 2026 at what was then an $852bn valuation. A $1.25 trillion mark is 47 per cent above that. This is not a down round against anything the company has actually closed; it is a retreat from a number it had hoped to reach, which is a different and milder thing than the framing of the week suggests.
The week the AI trade got repriced
The timing is the story. On 30 October 2026 the Nasdaq fell 2.9 per cent and finished its worst month in more than a year, according to the Wall Street Journal's market coverage that day, after results from Amazon and Intel deepened doubts about returns on AI infrastructure spending. Intel shares had their worst day on record, down 29 per cent, having warned it would burn cash this year on a weak personal computer market and manufacturing bottlenecks. Reuters reported that the Nasdaq-100 was on course to erase roughly $950bn of market value in the session, on top of close to $1.4 trillion already lost during October.
Anthropic is the other pressure. The FT reported that it is preparing to list next month at a valuation of at least $1.5 trillion, which would give investors something OpenAI cannot yet offer: audited numbers and a public price. Anthropic's Form S-1, which Parallax Nexus reported on, shows $16,286m of revenue for the first half of 2026 and a $693m operating loss. An investor weighing a private allocation at $1.25 trillion against a public one at $1.5 trillion with disclosure attached is making a comparison that did not exist two weeks ago.
Scale is what makes the reduction awkward. Alphabet's latest quarter, reported by Parallax Nexus, showed capital spending of $51,355m against $42,290m of operating cash flow, a reminder that even the companies with cash flow are funding this partly on credit. OpenAI has no such cash flow to lean on, so every expansion of capacity has to be financed, and each return to the market is now priced by whatever the AI trade is doing that fortnight.
The honest reading is that this is a demand problem at a price, not a demand problem. Investors willing to pay $1.4 trillion in September and $1.25 trillion now have moved about 11 per cent on valuation, which is less than the Nasdaq-100's own drawdown over the same month. The market is discriminating, not refusing.
What remains unknown is how much has actually been committed. Several outlets have cited a Wall Street Journal figure in the region of $11bn, but the published amounts differ between accounts and none is confirmed by OpenAI or a filing, so the subscription level is not establishable from the public record.
What happens next?
- OpenAI or its investors may confirm a first close, which would establish how much of the $20bn was actually subscribed.
- Anthropic's listing, reported by the FT as due next month at a valuation of at least $1.5 trillion, will produce the first public market price for a frontier AI developer.
- The Federal Reserve's December meeting matters to debt-funded AI buildouts, with LSEG data cited by Reuters showing expectations of more than 50 basis points of increases by mid-2027.
- OpenAI's confidential SEC filing from June 2026 would have to become public before any listing, which would replace the anonymous sourcing in this story with audited figures.
Related topics
Sources & references
- 01OpenAI Funding Target Cut by $10 Billion as AI Slumps, FT Says — Bloombergnews31 October 2026, reporting the Financial Times story of 30 October. Source of the $20bn/$1.25tn and $30bn/$1.4tn figures, the investor list, the $122bn March raise and the Anthropic $1.5tn listing plan. All FT figures attributed to people with knowledge of the matter.
- 02OpenAI pares fundraising goal, now seeking up to $20B in latest round — CNBCnews31 October 2026. Independent confirmation of the $20bn target from a person directly familiar with the deal, plus the note that the round has not closed.
- 03Nasdaq futures sink as Amazon, Intel intensify AI spending fears — Reutersnews30 October 2026. Source of the Intel cash-burn warning, the roughly $950bn single-session Nasdaq-100 figure and the close to $1.4tn month-to-date loss.
- 04Stock Market News, Oct. 30, 2026: Tech Selloff Pushes Nasdaq to Its Worst Month in Over a Year — The Wall Street Journalnews30 October 2026. Source of the 2.9 per cent Nasdaq fall, the worst-month framing and Intel's 29 per cent worst-ever session.
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