OpenAI Raises $8.3 Billion at $300 Billion Valuation, Eyes $40 Billion by Year-End

OpenAI has raised $8.3 billion in fresh funding at a $300 billion valuation, bringing the company a step closer to its target of securing $40 billion by the end of the year, according to The New York Times.

The latest round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, which reportedly committed $2.8 billion — around 10% of its total assets under management. It follows a $2.5 billion raise in March.

The round was heavily oversubscribed, with investors collectively seeking to put in about $40 billion, the Times said. But OpenAI gave priority to new strategic backers, leaving some existing investors with smaller allocations than expected.

Other participants in the raise include Blackstone, TPG, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, Altimeter Capital, Coatue, D1 Capital, Thrive Capital, and Tiger Global.

OpenAI, which began as a nonprofit in 2015, shifted toward a hybrid model in 2019 by creating a capped-profit arm to raise outside capital. Microsoft was the first major backer, investing $1 billion.

Internal forecasts suggest OpenAI expects to generate $12.7 billion in revenue next year. Its annual recurring revenue has already hit $13 billion, according to DealBook, with projections topping $20 billion by the end of 2025. The company says it doesn’t expect to turn cash-flow positive until 2029, when it hopes to cross $125 billion in revenue.

Its core product, ChatGPT, continues to dominate the market for large language models, holding more than 70% share since early 2024, based on data from FirstPageSage. OpenAI reported passing one million paid business subscribers in September.

While OpenAI leads in traditional venture funding, decentralized AI startups are drawing increasing attention in crypto circles. In April, Nous Research raised $50 million to build open-source AI models on Solana. In July, Poseidon secured $15 million to develop a data layer aimed at solving the shortage of cleared training data for AI systems.

Crypto venture activity overall rebounded in Q2 2025, with over $10 billion raised — the strongest quarter since early 2022. June alone saw $5.14 billion in new deals.