The art of storytelling is undoubtedly one of the exercises best mastered by Sam Altman. The story of OpenAI’s IPO, expected at the end of the year, unfolds like a series, structured in successive sequences, with its turning points, its crossovers and, today, a particularly marked cliffhanger.
This last episode was constructed in two stages, with the initial announcement of a round of 110 billion dollars, which gave the feeling of a well-crafted conclusion, despite certain tensions, notably the absence of Microsoft, and opened the prospect of an IPO. It was in reality only the first part of a season finaledesigned as a real cliffhangerleaving a critical situation unresolved to maintain attention before the next revelation.
And the next revelation didn’t just extend the intrigue, it changed its scale, taking OpenAI’s valuation to more than $850 billion. This second phase confirms the scale of the tour and clarifies its structure, which we had previously revealed.
At the same time, additional financing of around $10 billion, structured with financial investors including Andreessen Horowitz, TPG and T. Rowe Price, was added, with a notable element: the partial opening to individual investors.
Thus, more than $3 billion would have been raised via indirect distribution channels, notably investment products including those managed by ARK Invest. An exhibition which remains limited to a wealthy clientele, but marks an evolution in the composition of the tour.
In total, the operation reaches approximately $122 billion, making it the largest fundraising ever for a private technology company. The associated valuation, around $852 billion, positions OpenAI among the most valuable companies in the world, although it is not yet listed.
This structuring of the round is not solely a matter of financing logic, and allows OpenAI to confront its valuation with a broader spectrum of investors than is usual for an unlisted player.
The introduction, even partial, of individual investors via indirect channels contributes to this movement and broadens the points of price validation. The valuation is no longer just the product of a negotiation between a few dominant players, but is tested in conditions which approximate, without fully reproducing them, a pre-listing phase.
This sequence also sheds light on OpenAI’s positioning regarding its IPO. This would no longer be the moment when the price is discovered, but the moment when it is formalized in a liquid market, after having been tested upstream.
There remains one unknown: that of the transition to an open market. Because once confronted with liquidity, a valuation is no longer told, it is exchanged.
And the IPO could well, in fact, constitute the first episode of the next season.
