OpenAI Shrank Its Round by a Third - and Its Multiple Got Worse
OpenAI wanted $30B at $1.4T. Now it's asking for $20B at $1.25T - but its revenue fell faster than its price, so the deal is pricier than the markdown suggests.
Published · By Alfred Belvedere
Today's trend: OpenAI cut its funding round from $30 billion to about $20 billion and lowered its proposed valuation from $1.4 trillion to $1.25 trillion post-money, after some investors cut their allocations ahead of an October 30 commitment deadline. CNBC confirmed the reduced ask on October 31, 2026, following an FT report; the Wall Street Journal reported roughly $11 billion secured so far - about 37% of the original $30B target - with a lukewarm response from some large investors. The round is led by strategic Gulf money: UAE state-backed MGX alongside Coatue, with Founders Fund, Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz still in, and an option for OpenAI to lease newly built compute capacity in the region. The markdown is a trap: on October 8 OpenAI told investors its September annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion, so the price fell ~11% while the revenue figure underneath it fell ~29% - the multiple went from roughly 20x to roughly 25x. OpenAI chose to raise less rather than price lower, with a 2027 IPO reportedly on the horizon and Anthropic's S-1 pending. This is the clearest signal yet that private-market AI valuations are being reset by revenue reality, not by the AI trade cooling.