MarketsOCT 23, 2026

OpenAI trims $30B round to $1.25T from $1.4T as investor demand softens

A $150B markdown driven by weak private-wealth demand, a Nasdaq AI sell-off, and investors waiting on Anthropic's IPO pricing resets the private-market ceiling for frontier AI.

BY HENLEY MARRAST · MARKETS DESK

OpenAI has cut roughly $150 billion off the asking price of its bridge round, pricing a raise of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation after Morgan Stanley and Dragoneer spent recent weeks pitching private-wealth clients at $1.4 trillion. According to CNBC, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times, Coatue and United Arab Emirates-based funds are co-leading, with signatures targeted by the end of next week and a commitment deadline of October 30.

The reset happened in two weeks. People close to the process told the FT that demand “fell short of earlier OpenAI rounds,” with some investors balking at the trillion-four pitch and others simply waiting to see where Anthropic prices its mid-November IPO, where backers have discussed a $1.5 trillion valuation after once floating $2 trillion.

That hesitation isn’t abstract. It sits alongside a Nasdaq sell-off the FT ties directly to questions about whether AI infrastructure spending can produce sustainable returns, the same anxiety running through Bank of America’s railroad-era framing of a 50% collapse in token prices and Anthropic’s 90% Haiku 5.5 price cut. The pricing floor is sliding at the same moment the capital ceiling is being tested.

The arithmetic explains the urgency. OpenAI’s March round closed at an $852 billion post-money valuation on $122 billion of commitments from Amazon, SoftBank, and Nvidia, per SiliconANGLE, and in February the company told investors it was targeting roughly $600 billion in cumulative compute spend by 2030. CNBC reports the UAE financing is paired with a commercial deal for additional compute capacity, which is how a bridge round starts to look less like growth equity and more like vendor financing by another name.

Set against OpenAI’s recent $50 billion revenue correction and Anthropic’s $16.8 billion Q3, where growth slowed, the $150 billion haircut reads less as a wobble and more as the private market admitting what the token tape already said. Frontier AI is being repriced by its own customers first and its own investors second.

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About the author

Henley Marrast

MARKETS DESK

Henley Marrast covers AI-equity flow, accelerator demand, and earnings prints for AI Sheet Report. She leads coverage of the public AI complex from the New York markets desk, with a focus on the daily tape and quarterly results. She has been writing about technology markets for several years.