OpenAI has secured $8.3 billion in new capital as part of its ongoing $40 billion fundraising effort, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal.
The latest tranche—oversubscribed and completed ahead of schedule—signals surging investor appetite for the company’s products and its growing dominance in the global AI arms race.
The injection of funds comes as OpenAI’s business accelerates at a pace few anticipated. The company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has now reached $13 billion, up from $10 billion just last month, with projections suggesting it could cross $20 billion by the end of the year. Paid enterprise users of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s flagship product, have also surged from 3 million to 5 million in just a few months.
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The round was first reported by DealBook.
Investors Rush In
The latest investment was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, which contributed $2.8 billion, making it the largest single investor in this tranche. Other participants include some of the world’s most aggressive capital allocators: Blackstone, TPG, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Altimeter, D1 Capital, Tiger Global, and Thrive Capital.
While Dragoneer led this tranche, SoftBank remains the lead backer of the broader $40 billion campaign, underscoring how institutional giants continue to bet heavily on OpenAI’s leadership in AI infrastructure and applications.
The raise comes amid intensifying competition among top-tier AI developers, particularly from Anthropic, which is also in the midst of a major fundraising push. The Sam Altman-led OpenAI and Dario Amodei-led Anthropic are two of the most well-funded and technically advanced players in the frontier model space.
Anthropic is reportedly in talks to raise between $3 billion and $5 billion, led by Iconiq Capital, at a potential valuation of $170 billion, according to CNBC. That would mark a massive leap from its $61.5 billion valuation in March, when it secured a $3.5 billion investment round. The pace of its growth—and the valuation jump—highlight how capital-hungry the race to build and deploy next-gen foundation models has become.
Middle East Capital Now in Play
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have turned to the Middle East to help fund their ambitions—a strategic pivot that reflects the rising cost of staying competitive in a field where computing power and specialized infrastructure are increasingly the most decisive advantages.
OpenAI is partnering with Emirati firm G42 to develop a major data center in Abu Dhabi, a project seen as critical for expanding its compute footprint and reaching new international markets.
Anthropic, meanwhile, is also reportedly courting Gulf-based sovereign wealth funds. In a leaked internal memo obtained by Wired, CEO Dario Amodei acknowledged the company had softened its earlier resistance to such funding, writing that “it’s become substantially harder to stay on the frontier” without tapping into Middle Eastern capital.
OpenAI’s ability to raise billions at pace—and at a valuation that remains sky-high—demonstrates both investor confidence in its business model and the rising stakes in AI’s global power struggle. Governments, corporations, and sovereign wealth funds are all vying for a stake in AI’s future, fueling the competition to build the smartest chatbot.
Now the AI arms race is also about who builds the infrastructure, secures the supply chains, locks down the compute, and attracts the world’s most powerful backers. For now, OpenAI appears to be leading that charge. But Anthropic, flush with new capital and fast-closing the valuation gap, isn’t far behind.
OpenAI has secured $8.3 billion at a $300 billion valuation, The New York Times reports, in a fresh round of venture capital funding that puts the ChatGPT maker ahead of its own schedule to raise $40 billion by 2026. In a round that was five-times oversubscribed, the largest investment, $2.8 billion, came from a California-based firm called Dragoneer, which has in recent memory made savvy, early bets on juggernauts including Airbnb and Uber. Other first-time OpenAI investors included Blackstone, TPG and T. Rowe Price.