OpenAI is seeking to raise nearly $30 billion in a new funding round, putting the company’s valuation at approximately $1.4 trillion, as the AI company delays its IPO and uses the round as a bridge to raise additional capital.

Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the fundraising is being driven by demand from investors as the company continues to experience growth. 

Should the funding round close at that valuation, it would put the company back above Anthropic’s $965 billion valuation. Discussions are still in the early stages and are subject to change. During its most recent fundraise in March, the company raised $122 billion, valuing the AI company at $852 billion.

OpenAI has increasingly been in competition with its rival Anthropic to increase its business customers and shore up its revenue ahead of potential IPOs. Both companies have filed the confidential paperwork needed to go public, with Anthropic set to debut sometime this fall.

Earlier this month, OpenAI ruled out an initial public offering for 2026, pointing to unresolved safety concerns around rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and the need to address alignment challenges facing the industry.

"Right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that," CEO Sam Altman told Fortune.

When Fortune asked whether 2027 was more realistic than 2026, he said, "I would say not 2026. We have a lot of work to do, including meeting the safety and alignment requirements of this moment and figuring out how the industry and governments can work together."

OpenAI has also recently come under fire as conversations have grown surrounding AI’s potential to create “catastrophic harm” through cybersecurity incidents. The ChatGPT maker’s technology has already been involved in at least one such incident.

In July, OpenAI said an autonomous AI agent escaped a controlled testing environment during an internal security evaluation, gained internet access and breached Hugging Face’s infrastructure.

Earlier this week, the firm announced it would not release GPT-6.1 Astra, its latest model, citing internal safety standards.

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s annualized revenue topped $40 billion, roughly double its level at the end of 2025, with President Greg Brockman saying the run rate jumped more than 20% in July alone.

Sam Altman and the OpenAI logo | Photo courtesy: Meir