The race is about order, not amount

The roughly $30 billion target and the $1.4 trillion valuation are not the news. Both have been in circulation since early October, and [we covered them on 6 October](https://alfw.ai/article/openai-30b-raise-valuation/). What Reuters reported on 19 October is the acceleration: OpenAI is trying to secure investor commitments before Anthropic's expected mid-November public debut, and, more precisely, before Anthropic's financial disclosures give investors a fuller picture of the rival's business. The new story is the timetable, the stated motive and the revenue figures being presented to investors — not the round itself.

The two companies were in front of the same money in the same week. OpenAI held meetings with long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds last week, while Anthropic was hosting its own investor day. Some investors view OpenAI's push as an effort to lock in capital from funds that might otherwise devote more of their resources to Anthropic's debut, according to Reuters.

Sequencing is the strategy the timetable suggests. A private round is priced in meetings, on numbers the company chooses to present. A public filing is priced against whatever sits next to it. If OpenAI closes first, the round could be priced before Anthropic's public disclosures become a new reference point. If Anthropic's debut comes first, investors may bring those disclosures into subsequent OpenAI discussions. That is the strategic logic suggested by the reported timetable, not a guaranteed outcome. Edward Best, co-chair of capital markets at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, put the logic plainly to Reuters — OpenAI could want to set its own valuation and not have to worry about a comparison — while noting he was commenting on a hypothetical basis and is not working on the deal.

There is also a defensive reason in the reporting. Investors familiar with the company told Reuters OpenAI needs capital for its substantial infrastructure commitments, and a stronger balance sheet if a deterioration in IPO markets further delays its own planned 2027 listing.

Two revenue numbers that do not compare

The pitch, according to one of Reuters' sources, is $50 billion in annualised revenue, with $70 billion expected by year-end, following the launch of the GPT-6 Astra model. But the $70 billion figure is not new, and it is not a clean growth step from $50 billion. Earlier reporting had indicated OpenAI's annualised revenue was approaching $70 billion; Reuters then reported on 8 October that the September figure was nearly $50 billion. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the revised figure largely reflected an effort to make OpenAI's revenue calculations directly comparable with Anthropic's. The pitch therefore needs to be read in that context: $70 billion is a target the company had already been associated with, restated after its September number came in lower. OpenAI has also told investors that cutting prices on its cheaper models has boosted usage, and that it can lower prices further, the source added.

Annualised revenue is a run-rate estimate, often extrapolated from a recent period — typically one month's revenue multiplied by twelve. It is not the same as revenue earned over a completed quarter or year, and neither company's figure is audited in public.

Set against the pitch is Anthropic's roughly $65 billion annualised figure, reported by Reuters for July. Its subsequently reported third-quarter revenue was $16.8 billion, up from $11.6 billion in the second quarter. These are different measures at different dates: a run-rate estimate for July is not equivalent to a completed quarter's revenue, and multiplying the quarterly figure by four would not establish a comparable annualised figure without knowing the underlying accounting basis. Reuters has also reported that Anthropic's month-to-month growth rate slowed in the third quarter, which is what has some existing and prospective investors arguing it should debut nearer $1.5 trillion than the $2 trillion it wants.

The comparison is not clean for a second reason. OpenAI records revenue net of partner shares. It has accused Anthropic of inflating revenue by counting the full, gross value of contracts sold through third-party cloud providers. Anthropic's position, given to Reuters, is that it follows established accounting practices. [We covered that dispute in full on 10 October](https://alfw.ai/article/openai-anthropic-gross-net-revenue/); the relevant point here is narrower — the two companies' headline figures differ in both accounting basis and date, so neither should be treated as a directly comparable league-table entry. OpenAI's pitch also highlights the accounting distinction, arguing that its net-basis figure should not be compared directly with Anthropic's.

A market that is stepping back

The rush is happening while other companies move the other way. Bankers and investors told Reuters that a number of companies preparing to go public have decided to wait until after Anthropic's expected debut rather than compete for the same demand, and some late-stage companies are timing private rounds to avoid the same window. Blackstone-backed AirTrunk REIT, Nvidia-backed Firmus and SoftBank-backed SB Energy have pulled or paused listings. Companies in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index have shed $1.6 trillion in market value in less than two weeks, Reuters reported, and CoreWeave — carrying nearly $50 billion in borrowings, per the same reporting — has become the market's test case for AI infrastructure debt.

That backdrop cuts both ways. It helps explain why OpenAI would rather take commitments now than queue behind a rival in a choppy market. It also means the $1.4 trillion figure, if the round closes there, will have been set by a small number of large backers in private meetings, in the same weeks public investors were marking AI exposure down. SoftBank and MGX are named as in talks. As with the October reporting, no lead investor has been announced, and OpenAI declined to comment. None of the backdrop, however, establishes that OpenAI's round will price differently because of it.

What has not happened yet

No commitments have been announced. No filing from either company is public. The round's final size, price and participants could all differ from what sources describe this week, and the Financial Times had previously reported some details of the potential fundraising. What is established is narrower: two frontier labs, one investor pool, and a few weeks in which the order of events may matter as much as the numbers themselves.

Sources

  1. [1] Reuters, "OpenAI seeks to accelerate fundraising ahead of Anthropic IPO, sources say," Echo Wang, Krystal Hu and Sabrina Valle, 19 October 2026 — the acceleration, the investor pitch figures, the same-week investor meetings and the market backdrop; read via a Reuters syndication mirrorRead source
  2. [2] Reuters, 8 October 2026 — OpenAI told investors its September annualised revenue was nearly $50 billion, below an earlier indicated figure approaching $70 billion, with the revision largely reflecting an effort to make its calculations directly comparable with Anthropic's; as carried by Reuters syndicationRead source
  3. [3] ALFW, "OpenAI's $30B Round Prices Itself at $1.4T. There Is No Lead Investor.", 6 October 2026 — our earlier coverage of the round, its price and the absence of a lead investorRead source
  4. [4] ALFW, "Anthropic Counts the Whole Dollar. OpenAI Counts Twenty Cents.", 10 October 2026 — our full treatment of the net-versus-gross revenue disputeRead source
  5. [5] ALFW, Anthropic Q3 revenue coverage, 14 October 2026 — the $16.8 billion third-quarter figure against $11.6 billion in Q2Read source