OpenAI는 목표액 300억 달러 중 110억 달러를 조달했으며, 목표액을 200억 달러로 하향 조정했다.

OpenAI has raised about $11 billion so far in its new funding round, less than half of the $30 billion it was seeking. The target, in effect, drops to a maximum of $20 billion. The valuation falls to $1.25 trillion, against the $1.4 trillion first pitched to investors. The Wall Street Journal reported the figures, citing people familiar with the talks, and The Next Web picked them up. The Financial Times had already flagged the lower target on Friday, October 30.

OpenAI is the American company behind ChatGPT and the GPT models. It pays for data centers, chips and staff with capital raised in waves from large funds. A round is a fundraising in which investors buy stakes and the company collects the money in tranches. This time the first tranche went badly, and the numbers show how badly.

What happened to the $30 billion round

The story unfolds in three steps. First, OpenAI pitched investors $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation. It then lowered the valuation last week and set Friday, October 30, as the deadline for commitments. At that point, according to the FT, some funds trimmed their share, and the first close (the formal conclusion of the first tranche) would have brought in less than $20 billion.

On Saturday, October 31, the WSJ put a number on it. Commitments gathered so far come to about $11 billion, while the interest of some large investors was described as "tepid," the paper's own word. OpenAI wrote to shareholders that it expects to raise more money in the coming weeks, targeting family offices and wealthy individuals. The stated ceiling is $20 billion in all. CNBC confirmed the new target, citing a person directly familiar with the deal, who added an important caveat: the round is still open and the figures could change.

The $11 billion figure deserves a careful reading. It is not the tally of a closed round, since the WSJ speaks of sums secured so far rather than a completed raise. Still, it is a heavy number for a company that had to adjust first the valuation and then the fundraising target within a few days.

Commitments, payments and valuation: three terms not to mix up

In rounds of this size, the numbers in circulation mean different things, and mixing them up leads to wrong headlines. A commitment is a fund's promise to invest a given sum, which is then paid in on one or more dates. A payment is the money that actually lands in the company's account. When the WSJ writes that OpenAI has "secured" about $11 billion, the verb refers to the first category.

Valuation is the price investors put on the whole company. It can refer to the moment before the new capital (pre-money) or after it (post-money). In OpenAI's case, the FT puts the $1.25 trillion after the new capital arrives, a drop of about 11% from the $1.4 trillion of the first pitch. A markdown of that order is worth roughly $150 billion on paper.

Who is putting up the money and who is pulling back

The FT names MGX, an investment fund backed by the United Arab Emirates, as the likely lead backer. Alongside MGX, SoftBank, Founders Fund, Coatue, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz are expected to take part, names that have filled the cap tables (the tables listing who owns shares) of leading AI companies for years.

What is missing is the appetite of the big funds, which usually make the difference. The part of the $20 billion that OpenAI still has to find will run through family offices (firms that manage the wealth of a very rich family) and individual wealthy investors, a slower, more fragmented channel with much smaller checks. The FT reports a later offer to private investors at the same $1.25 trillion valuation. Finding up to $9 billion among private investors, after trying to raise $30 billion from funds, is a very different task.

For comparison, earlier this month came news of a $12 billion round attributed to DeepSeek, coinciding with the American ban for federal agencies. The $30 billion OpenAI asked for was more than double that figure. Even the new $20 billion ceiling tops it by a wide margin.

Why investors are holding back

The capital market for artificial intelligence is no longer running as hot as it did a few weeks ago.

The explanation reported in the press points to the week that just closed on Wall Street. The WSJ and The Decoder tie the investors' chill to a selloff in tech stocks linked to disappointing quarterly results from Google, Amazon and Intel. Alphabet lost more than 12% in a single session and shed about $500 billion of market capitalization, Intel plunged 30%, and the whole tech sector lost a trillion dollars.

The mechanism is easy to describe. A fund about to write a multibillion-dollar check looks at what listed stocks in the same sector are doing. When the sector loses a trillion dollars in a few days, a $1.4 trillion valuation for an unlisted company looks higher than it did before. OpenAI reacted by dropping to $1.25 trillion, and that was not enough to fill the round.

Limitations to keep in mind

The figures come from people familiar with the talks and from paywalled WSJ and FT articles, so no public document confirms them. OpenAI did not respond to CNBC's request for comment. The Next Web also notes it has not verified the numbers independently.

The $11 billion is money secured, not cash already collected, and the round remains open. The same CNBC source warns that the amounts can still change, up or down.

The FT puts the $1.25 trillion after the new capital, but the reconstructions of recent days did not all use the same criterion (before or after the injection). The comparison with the $1.4 trillion of the first pitch should therefore be read with caution.

The link to the tech stock selloff is the reading of the newspapers and their sources. No one has shown that the market drop caused the round to stall, or the reverse.

The race with Anthropic toward the stock market

The timing matters for another reason. According to the FT, Anthropic aims to go public next month at a valuation of at least $1.5 trillion, after making its listing document public on Monday, October 26. The ticker ANT has already been confirmed, although the shares cannot yet be bought. Anthropic's third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion is fueling the anticipation.

The Decoder observes that a successful listing would leave Anthropic with well over $100 billion in cash to weather any difficult phase, a cushion OpenAI cannot take for granted today. OpenAI, according to the WSJ, is also weighing a listing as early as next year. The sequence matters, however. Going to the markets after a round that closed below expectations is a different story from going with $30 billion more and the valuation intact.

The contest between the two labs is not played on capital alone. On October 9, OpenAI overtook Anthropic on OpenRouter for the first time, in a price war that The Decoder links to OpenAI's efforts to hold its position with list-price cuts and more efficient models.

What it means for people who use OpenAI products

For anyone using ChatGPT and Codex every day, no change has been announced as a result of this news. Prices, plans and limits stay as communicated so far, including the usage limit shared between ChatGPT and Codex arriving in December. No source has reported a direct link between the round and the usage rules, so it would be wrong to invent one.

One indirect consequence remains to watch. A lab that must balance its books with more cautious investors has less room to give away compute. Three signals bear watching in the coming weeks: the real close of the round, the final figure against the stated $20 billion, and any revision of model price lists. If the raise stalls near $11 billion, the pressure on OpenAI's costs becomes an issue for developers too, who today pay by the token.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. Is OpenAI's round closed?

No, it is still open. The FT cited Friday, October 30, as the deadline for commitments, but the CNBC source says the round continues and the figures can change, while OpenAI has told shareholders it wants to raise more money in the coming weeks from family offices and private investors.

2. Has OpenAI commented on the news?

Not so far. According to The Next Web, the company did not immediately respond to CNBC's request on Saturday. There is no official statement confirming the $11 billion or the new $20 billion target.

3. Why did the valuation fall from $1.4 trillion to $1.25 trillion?

To meet more cautious investors partway. The FT says OpenAI pitched $1.4 trillion and cut it to $1.25 trillion a week before the deadline, as tech stocks were falling after the results from Google, Amazon and Intel.

4. When could OpenAI go public?

Early 2027 at the earliest. That is the window the WSJ gives, with no date or ex