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OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

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Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#151

Post by jsnell »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #131
aurareturn wrote: post #58

$2b/month which is $24b/year. Not as much as I expected considering they were at $20b by end of 2025.[0] They only added $4b since? Anthropic had $19b by end of February 2026 and they added $6b in February alone.[1] This means if they added another $6b in March, they're higher than OpenAI already. However, I heard that OpenAI and Anthropic report revenue in a different way. OpenAI takes 20% of revenue from Azure sale…

30x revenues at 17% revenue growth is... aggressive.

Except it's not 100x revenues, and it's not 17% growth. I don't know where you got those numbers from?

The numbers OpenAI gave in the post would mean a 30x multiple pre-money. And the $20B -> $24B run-rate growth since the start of the year could plausibly mean anything from 110% to 200% annualized growth rate, depending on whether that happened over two or three months. The $24B is a lower bound as well, since they only gave use one significant digit for the monthly revenue.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#152

Post by lotsofpulp »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #59
nine_k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is reality-distortion field rivaling that of Jobs', and a crisis of faith. Nobody apparently believes that capital is worth investing into anything but AI.

> Nobody apparently believes that capital is worth investing into anything but AI. This is the main reason we see this insane investment into AI imo. If you imagine having lots of money, where should you invest that currently? Housing market: Seems very overvalued (at least in germany). Also with the current uncertainty and inflation its hard to make an investment that pays back over 20-30 years. So building is also…

> Stocks are very volatile currently. Not only since Iran. To me it seems since the financial crisis 2008 investors don't enjoy stocks as before.

These returns do not qualify as “enjoying stocks”?

https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...

The returns are higher than before 2008, the previous 15 years are unprecedented.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2526/sp-500-historical-annual-re...

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#153

Post by pier25 »

cmiles8 wrote: post #70

This all smells fishy. They didn’t “raise” $122B. Raise means someone put funds in your bank account and said send us the next quarterly report to tell us how our investment is doing. They have pieces from paper of folks saying they may put up funds or goods and services in that amount. But it’s important to remember that: 1. While they are “raising” commitments others are backing out of deals (see Disney, various da…

If OpenAI goes down their investors will lose any chance at getting their money back. They need to keep pretending things are going great for as long as possible.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#154

Post by dang »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

Ok, let's switch to the HTML doc title above.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#155

Post by apparent »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

No, they didn't raise $122B as the HN title implies. A big chunk of that $122B is a "maybe" that depends on various things that need to happen in the future. Oh, man... I can't wait to see where this is going. Might not be pretty after all.

I've wondered how many announced fundraising rounds were like this. It's in everyone's interest (VCs and entrepreneurs) if the message to the outside world is "this company is amazing so they've raised a boatload of cash". But VCs might not want to give it all up front, or unconditionally.

It makes it hard to say what the valuation of a company is. If the milestones are unlikely to be hit, then it's anyone's guess.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#156

Post by hirako2000 »

aurareturn wrote: post #145
pier25 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a billion and I'll have 500M of revenue in no time by selling dollars at 50 cents.

Why are we treating OpenAI and Anthropic differently than say, Amazon or Uber? Both companies invested in growth for many years before making a profit. Most tech companies in the last 2-3 decades lost money for years before making a profit. Why are we saying that OpenAI and Anthropic can't do the same?

Two reasons. They somewhat broke even, and kept getting investment. The potential for quasi monopoly was obvious.

Openai can't claim either.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#157

Post by nostrademons »

jmalicki wrote: post #112
Aurornis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having large funding rounds contingent on meeting milestones is common. Always has been.

It just makes comparing funding rounds hard to understand, since money in the bank is money in the bank, and a lot of the "committed capital if you reach a milestone" is capital that would be easy to get if you reached that milestone, if it is sufficiently advanced, and has enough outs, etc., that you may as well have just raised another round in the future.

Note that even that "money in the bank" of traditional venture firm is not really money in the bank. VC, PE, and hedge fund managers usually don't have all the cash for the fund sitting in the bank at all times. Rather, their agreement with the LPs that fund the fund is structured as a series of capital calls: it gives the fund the right to demand that their LPs deposit cash in their bank accounts within 10-30 days, which can then be used to fund the investments that the VC firm makes. The capital calls are backed by legal documents enforceable in court, with pretty stiff penalties for failing to meet a capital call.

Such a funding structure here isn't all that different: the funding agreement gives OpenAI the right to call on their backers to make certain cash deposits, contingent upon milestones being met. Deep down inside, "money in the bank" doesn't actually exist, it's just mutual agreements backed by force of law.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#158

Post by aurareturn »

manquer wrote: post #132
aurareturn wrote: post #58

$2b/month which is $24b/year. Not as much as I expected considering they were at $20b by end of 2025.[0] They only added $4b since? Anthropic had $19b by end of February 2026 and they added $6b in February alone.[1] This means if they added another $6b in March, they're higher than OpenAI already. However, I heard that OpenAI and Anthropic report revenue in a different way. OpenAI takes 20% of revenue from Azure sale…

They aren't reporting anything yet. What we hearing is just from news media who get their leaks/info from investors who get some form of IR reports/ presentation. Both will do public reporting only when they IPO[4] and have regulatory requirement to do so every quarter. For private companies[1] reporting to investors there are no fixed rules really[3] Even for public companies, there is fair amount of leeway on how G…

  They aren't reporting anything yet. What we hearing is just from news media who get their leaks/info from investors who get some form of IR reports/ presentation.
The $24b figure is literally in OpenAI's announcement.

The $19b ARR and $6b added in Feb came directly from Anthropic CEO recently.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#159

Post by apparent »

wmf wrote: post #114
Aurornis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having large funding rounds contingent on meeting milestones is common. Always has been.

Why not announce the funding after the milestones have been met?

It's splashier this way, and is meant to shape the narrative, make other companies fear their warchest, and make hiring easier. Of course, those who are in-the-know won't be fooled, but the perception of the general public will be set in stone by the PR framing.

Re: OpenAI closes funding round at an $852B valuation

#160

Post by Forgeties79 »

aurareturn wrote: post #145
pier25 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a billion and I'll have 500M of revenue in no time by selling dollars at 50 cents.

Why are we treating OpenAI and Anthropic differently than say, Amazon or Uber? Both companies invested in growth for many years before making a profit. Most tech companies in the last 2-3 decades lost money for years before making a profit. Why are we saying that OpenAI and Anthropic can't do the same?

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