OpenAI cuts funding target to $20 billion, FT reports

OpenAI has cut the target for its latest funding round to about $20 billion from $30 billion and lowered the valuation it is seeking to $1.25 trillion from $1.4 trillion, the Financial Times reported on October 30, 2026.

TechCrunch summarized the report on October 31 and carried the earlier figures, and Reuters carried the same Financial Times numbers in its own account. The reduction lands in the middle of a selloff in AI and semiconductor stocks that has pulled the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 7.8 percent from its October 6 closing high, according to Reuters.

OpenAI set a Friday, October 30 deadline for investors to commit, the Financial Times reported via Reuters, but the first close is expected to raise less than the $20 billion target after some investors reduced their allocations. A later retail offering to wealthy individuals, at the same $1.25 trillion valuation, could bring the total up to the target.

The Wall Street Journal reported in a follow-up that OpenAI had raised less than half of the $30 billion it first targeted. TechCrunch, citing the Journal, put the amount secured so far at $11 billion and described a tepid response from some large investors.

The round is expected to be led by a consortium of United Arab Emirates investors that includes the state-backed technology fund MGX, which is expected to be the largest participant, the Financial Times reported via Reuters. As part of the deal, OpenAI would gain the option to lease newly developed computing capacity in the region. Founders Fund, Coatue, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz are also expected to take part.

The round's terms have moved twice in five weeks. Bloomberg reported on September 29 that OpenAI was in talks to raise $30 billion at roughly $1.4 trillion, according to TechCrunch. On October 22, CNBC reported a $30 billion raise at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, in a round led by Coatue and UAE investors, TechCrunch wrote; OpenAI declined to comment at the time.

The revised price is far above OpenAI's last completed round, which closed on March 31, 2026 at $122 billion in committed capital and an $852 billion post-money valuation, the company said. A $1.25 trillion price is about 47 percent above that, seven months later.

OpenAI has been working to close the round ahead of Anthropic's expected public listing in mid-November, Reuters reported, because the two labs are courting the same investors. OpenAI is pursuing its own listing in 2027.

OpenAI, MGX, Coatue, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment, and Reuters said it could not reach Founders Fund. TechCrunch said it had reached out to OpenAI. OpenAI has made no statement on the round; its last confirmed raise is the March round.

For people who make video, the report matters through compute. Video models are billed by the second and run on the same GPU capacity that a round this size would help finance. If the smaller book signals that investors are pulling back from funding data-center and chip buildouts, a shift TechCrunch reported is already underway at Big Tech, the supply and cost of rented inference could tighten. No source ties the OpenAI round to video API pricing, and the effect would be indirect at best.

The round is expected to close below its target, with Anthropic's listing the next signal of what this investor base will pay.