OpenAI Reportedly In Talks for $1.2 Trillion Valuation, Targets IPO Above $1 Trillion in 2027

Since OpenAI closed its $852 billion valuation round on March 31, the company is reportedly back at the negotiating table for even more money. A report from ChainCatcher, relayed by the crypto exchange KuCoin, says OpenAI is in early-stage talks with investors targeting a valuation near $1.2 trillion ahead of a future IPO. The report cites unnamed sources familiar with the matter and notes negotiations remain preliminary.

This would represent roughly a 40% jump in valuation in under six months, on top of an already massive raise. OpenAI's March round, detailed in the company's own announcement, brought in $122 billion in committed capital and was anchored by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank, with continued backing from Microsoft. SoftBank co-led alongside a16z, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price accounts, with additional money from BlackRock affiliates, Blackstone, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, and Temasek, among others. OpenAI also opened the round to individual investors through bank channels, pulling in more than $3 billion from retail money.

Separately, a Motley Fool analysis published via Yahoo Finance on August 27 reported that OpenAI filed confidential IPO paperwork with the SEC in June, and that Sam Altman is targeting a public valuation above $1 trillion. CFO Sarah Friar reportedly told staff in an internal meeting that OpenAI would be "a public company in 2027." Altman himself, according to the KuCoin report, has said an IPO is unlikely before 2027.

The revenue numbers behind the number

OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate went from $3.7 billion in late 2024 to about $20 billion at the end of 2025, then $25 billion in early 2026, and over $40 billion by August 2026, according to the Motley Fool report. That's real, fast growth, driven by ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscriptions, enterprise deals, and API usage from developers.

But growth isn't the same as profit. Per leaked audited financials cited in that same report, OpenAI generated $13.1 billion in booked revenue in 2025 against a $20.9 billion operating loss. The gap comes from the cost of building out cloud and AI infrastructure, spending the report says will likely accelerate, not shrink, as the IPO approaches.

At a $1 trillion valuation, OpenAI would trade at about 25 times its trailing annualized revenue run rate. For comparison, the Motley Fool report puts SpaceX's valuation at $1.8 trillion, or nearly 100 times last year's sales, and says rival Anthropic is targeting a $2 trillion IPO valuation, roughly 31 times its reported $65 billion ARR as of the end of July.

The case for skepticism, and the case against it

Does a company burning nearly $21 billion a year deserve a valuation north of $1 trillion, climbing toward $1.2 trillion in private markets before it's even public? Critics of the current AI investment cycle point out that OpenAI's operating losses grew even as revenue did, and that a valuation built on future projections is a bet on execution that hasn't happened yet. OpenAI reportedly believes it can hit $100 billion in annual revenue and turn profitable by 2029.

Plenty of tech companies have burned cash for years chasing scale and never reached profitability on the timeline investors expected. The counterargument, made implicitly by the investors writing nine and ten-figure checks, is that OpenAI's growth curve is genuinely unusual. Going from $3.7 billion to over $40 billion in annualized revenue in under two years is a pace few companies in history have matched, including the internet and mobile giants OpenAI's own materials compare itself to. Whether that pace holds, or whether the infrastructure costs keep outrunning it, is the actual bet being made here.

The $1.2 trillion figure comes from a single early-stage report, not an OpenAI announcement, and no funding agreement has been signed. OpenAI's SEC filing remains confidential, meaning the public won't see audited numbers or a set IPO date until the company chooses to disclose them, or until regulators require it. Investors watching Altman's path to public markets are, for now, watching a moving target: three different valuation figures, $852 billion, $1 trillion, and $1.2 trillion, all in circulation within the same six-month window.