OpenAI Seeks $40 Billion Funding Round, Valuation Could Reach $340 Billion
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company, is in talks to raise up to $40 billion in a new funding round that would significantly boost its valuation. According to two sources familiar with the negotiations, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank would lead the round, contributing between $15 billion and $25 billion, surpassing Microsoft as OpenAI’s top backer. The funding round is expected to lift OpenAI’s valuation to as high as $340 billion.
The proposed funding may also be used for OpenAI’s commitment to Stargate, a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle that was announced by President Donald Trump last week. The plan involves investing billions of dollars in U.S. AI infrastructure.
OpenAI was last valued at $157 billion by private investors and has already received significant investment, closing its latest $6.6 billion round in October. The company has been gearing up to aggressively compete with Elon Musk’s xAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Anthropic. However, it now faces new competition from Chinese startup lab DeepSeek, which has seen its app soar to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings this week.
DeepSeek’s powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of its U.S. competitors, causing concerns about the company’s ability to disrupt the AI industry. In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has emphasized the level of competition in the industry, saying that DeepSeek is “clearly a great model.” He also pointed to the “level of interest in reasoning, the level of interest in open source” as areas where OpenAI can focus to stay competitive.