OpenAI cuts funding round target to $20B from $30B

Felix Laurent 1 Nov 2026 4 min read

Funding

OpenAI has cut the target of its new funding round to about $20B from $30B, the Financial Times reported on Friday, Oct 30. The valuation under discussion fell earlier, to $1.25T from the $1.4T OpenAI had floated. The round has not closed, so the figures can still change.

What was reported

On Oct 22, CNBC reported that OpenAI was close to raising up to $30B at a $1.25T valuation, led by investors from the United Arab Emirates alongside Coatue. Investors had until Oct 30 to commit. OpenAI was also negotiating a compute deal with the UAE alongside the investment.

The $1.25T was already a step down. According to the FT, Morgan Stanley and Dragoneer had offered OpenAI shares to wealthy private clients at a pre-money valuation of $1.4T, and demand was weaker than in earlier rounds. That is a cut of about 11% in price.

On the deadline day, the FT reported that some investors had reduced their allocations and that OpenAI had cut the target to about $20B, a 33% cut in size. The order matters: the price moved first, and the amount followed. OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment from CNBC and Fortune.

Price held, cheque cut

The two cuts differ in scale. The valuation fell about 11%, while the round fell about 33%. Read that way, investors accepted a price close to what OpenAI wanted but would commit less money at it.

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had secured about $11B so far and that some large investors showed tepid interest. We could not open the WSJ original, and none of the reports we read directly repeats the figure, so it comes only through a retelling by Wowtale. Earlier reports named SoftBank, Abu Dhabi's MGX and BlackRock among investors in talks. None of the reports says who reduced their allocation. The price itself is hard to compare with the last round.

OpenAI valuation rising from $300B in March 2025 and $852B in March 2026 to $1.25T now discussed, while the round target fell from $30B to $20B

How it compares with March

In March, OpenAI said it closed a round with $122B in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852B. A year earlier, in March 2025, it raised money at $300B. A $1.25T price would be about 47% above March, seven months later.

The bases may differ. CNBC's Oct 22 report called the $1.25T pre-money, meaning it does not include the new capital. Its Oct 31 report says the FT described it as post-money. The 47% gap is therefore a rough comparison. Either way, investors are being asked to value OpenAI higher than in March while its numbers draw more scrutiny.

The revenue question

In early October, an OpenAI investor presentation put annualized revenue at nearly $50B, Techzine reported, citing the FT. In August, a figure of $68B had circulated. A source told the FT the two used different methods: the earlier one counted gross revenue through partners, the new one OpenAI's net revenue. OpenAI is pitching $70B by the end of the year, Reuters reported.

The gap still rattled markets. On Oct 9, the day the figures came out, the Nasdaq fell 1.25%, Oracle dropped 5.5% and CoreWeave 8%. OpenAI's chief financial officer Sarah Friar has said the company will be public in 2027, and Sam Altman called the present an ill-advised moment to go public. A rival is moving faster.

The market backdrop

The FT reported that the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.9% on Oct 30, leaving it 7.8% below its early October record. The same evening, S&P Global cut its outlook on Meta to negative from stable, warning about its AI spending, Fortune reported.

Anthropic filed for an IPO on Nasdaq on Oct 26 and could list in mid-November. In May it raised money at a $965B valuation. Reports put its IPO target at around $1.5T, down from about $2T expected earlier. Both companies are asking investors for record prices in the same weeks. None of the reports says the market fall caused OpenAI's cut. They show only that the round shrank in a weak week for tech stocks.

What is still open

Several details remain unclear. The reports differ on whether $1.25T is pre-money or post-money, and on who first reported the cut in size: a summary on X credits Bloomberg, while the other pages credit the FT. The $11B committed figure has not been confirmed outside one retelling.

So is OpenAI losing investors' confidence? Not on price, but on size. Investors still accept a valuation of about $1.25T, 47% above March, yet they are putting in a third less than OpenAI asked for. The revenue restatement, a falling Nasdaq and Anthropic's IPO all compete for the same money. The round will show how much the market will still pay for OpenAI when it closes, and so far the answer is: the price, but not the full amount.