It is the IPO half the tech world is waiting for. OpenAI filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC on June 8, 2026. In September 2026, though, CEO Sam Altman himself said a public listing this year is not happening. Its last valuation was $852 billion, and a new funding round at up to $1.5 trillion is now being discussed instead.
I follow OpenAI not just because I use ChatGPT every day, but because one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world is going public. Unlike SpaceX, which is already listed, OpenAI is still a private company until the IPO. So you cannot buy the stock yet, and there is no separate ChatGPT stock either.
In this article you get everything about the OpenAI IPO: the expected date, the valuation, the business model behind the revenue, the biggest investors and the routes available before the IPO if you want to invest.
- OpenAI filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC on June 8, 2026. CEO Sam Altman has ruled out an IPO this year, and CFO Sarah Friar is targeting 2027
- Its last valuation is $852 billion (March 2026). A new funding round is now being discussed at up to $1.5 trillion, with investors reportedly offering around $1.2 trillion
- Annualized revenue was around $24 billion in March 2026; Bloomberg reported it topped $40 billion by August, the fastest revenue growth in tech history
- Its structure as a Public Benefit Corporation under a nonprofit parent makes the IPO more complicated than for a normal company
1. The OpenAI IPO at a glance
The key facts of the planned offering:
The key difference from a normal IPO: OpenAI is organized today as a Public Benefit Corporation that is controlled by a nonprofit foundation. This setup makes the offering legally far more complex than a classic company going public. More on that further down.
2. The road to the IPO
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit with the goal of making artificial intelligence benefit all of humanity. In ten years, that non-profit has become one of the most valuable private tech companies in the world. The timeline below shows the key stations up to the S-1:
The real accelerator was the funding round in March 2026: with $122 billion in fresh capital and a valuation of $852 billion, going public became the obvious next step. Less than ten weeks later came the confidential S-1 on June 8, 2026.
3. Valuation: $852 billion and how it got there
Few private technology companies have ever posted a comparable valuation trajectory, from $1 billion in 2019 to $852 billion in March 2026. The chart below shows the rise across the individual funding rounds:
The jumps are enormous, from $14 billion in 2021 to $500 billion by October 2025, as the chart above shows. The March 2026 round was announced at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion and finalized at $852 billion post-money. For context, measured against annualized revenue of around $24 billion, that's a multiple that prices in a lot of future growth. Since September 2026, the New York Times reports OpenAI is negotiating another round at a target valuation of up to $1.5 trillion, with investors reportedly offering around $1.2 trillion so far. No decision has been made. You can find more numbers in my article on OpenAI statistics.
4. Funding & investors
In total, OpenAI has raised around $190 billion in funding. The biggest backers are SoftBank, Amazon, Nvidia and Microsoft. The chart below shows the most important investors by amount invested:
SoftBank is the biggest backer with over $71 billion in total. In the March 2026 round, Amazon committed $50 billion and Nvidia $30 billion, while Microsoft has been on board with $13 billion since 2019. At $122 billion, this round is the largest single funding round in the history of private companies. What stands out is how tightly OpenAI is now intertwined with its compute partners: Nvidia supplies the chips, Amazon and Microsoft the cloud infrastructure.
5. Revenue & business model
OpenAI makes its money from three pillars: ChatGPT subscriptions for consumers, the API for developers and enterprise contracts with companies. Annualized revenue has grown like nothing in tech history, from around $0.3 billion at the end of 2022 to around $24 billion run-rate in March 2026:
The curve speaks for itself. Annualized revenue grew from around $0.3 billion at the end of 2022 to about $24 billion by March 2026, as the chart above shows the climb year by year. The pace has kept climbing since. Bloomberg reported the rate topped $40 billion by August 2026, more than double the end of 2025. One detail matters for investors. There is no separate ChatGPT stock. Anyone who wants to bet on ChatGPT's growth gets that exposure only through OpenAI stock after the IPO. And despite the growth, OpenAI is not yet sustainably profitable, as its infrastructure and staffing costs are enormous.
6. The numbers behind the IPO: a $38.5B loss
On June 16, 2026, OpenAI's audited 2025 figures became public. On revenue of $13.07 billion, it posted an operating loss of $20.9 billion. The reported net loss of $38.5 billion, however, is inflated by a one-time, non-cash conversion effect of $41.5 billion from the for-profit restructuring.
Stripped of one-off items, the actual cash loss was around $8 billion. The biggest cost block was research and development at $19.18 billion. For investors that means the huge net loss is largely an accounting effect, while the operating hole is real but far smaller.
7. The $1.4 trillion compute deals
OpenAI has signed compute contracts worth around $1.4 trillion, led by Broadcom, Oracle, and Microsoft, with Amazon AWS, Nvidia, AMD, and CoreWeave rounding out the list. The chart below breaks down each partner's commitment.
That exceeds today's revenue by more than fiftyfold and is the real reason for OpenAI's hunger for capital and its planned IPO. The per-partner figures, though, are reported estimates rather than fixed amounts.
8. Who owns OpenAI?
After the conversion into a Public Benefit Corporation in October 2025, ownership splits between employees and investors, Microsoft, and the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, with the exact breakdown in the chart below.
Microsoft diluted its stake from a previous 32.5% to 27%, but keeps the IP rights to the frontier models through 2032. For future shareholders, that is the decisive point: the nonprofit foundation remains the largest controlling block with just over a quarter.
9. When will OpenAI go public?
OpenAI took the first formal step with the confidential S-1 on June 8, 2026. "Confidential" means the filing initially goes only to the SEC, not the public. Normally the public version of the S-1 follows around 60 to 90 days later, which in this case would have been roughly late July or August. By late September 2026 it still had not appeared, because OpenAI has since reprioritized the process.
A public listing this year is now off the table. CEO Sam Altman said on September 12, 2026 that an IPO in 2026 was not on the cards given rising safety concerns in the industry. CFO Sarah Friar had already told associates internally that 2027 was the target. The plans are still led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the lead banks, though no fixed date for 2027 has been set.
One peculiarity could still affect the further timeline. OpenAI is organized as a Public Benefit Corporation that is formally controlled by a nonprofit foundation. This structure is unusual for an IPO and raises questions, such as how much say new shareholders actually get and how the nonprofit parent keeps control. Such constructions are complex to structure and can lengthen the process.
In parallel, OpenAI has been negotiating a new private funding round since September 2026. The New York Times reports a target valuation of up to $1.5 trillion, with investors reportedly offering around $1.2 trillion so far. No decision has been made here either, and the talks are running alongside the IPO preparations.
10. Buying OpenAI stock: routes before the IPO
The short answer first: you cannot buy OpenAI stock the normal way right now. As long as the company is private, there is no freely tradable stock and no separate ChatGPT stock either. But there are a few ways to prepare or get indirect exposure:
By far the simplest route, and the sensible one for most people, is to simply wait for the IPO. Once the stock is listed, you buy it through any broker that offers US equities. There is currently no WKN or ISIN, as both identifiers are only assigned at the IPO. Steer clear of shady offers that try to sell you "OpenAI shares" today.
11. SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI: the three big IPOs compared
OpenAI is not the only mega-IPO this year. With SpaceX and Anthropic, two more of the most valuable tech and AI companies are heading for, or already past, the public markets. Here is how OpenAI ranks by valuation:
SpaceX is by far the largest of the three and the only one already listed. OpenAI and Anthropic sat close together on their last confirmed rounds, $852 billion and $965 billion, and both filed their IPO paperwork confidentially in early June. Both are now in talks for markedly higher valuations for their next phase, Anthropic for the IPO itself, OpenAI for another private round. For details on the other two, see my articles on the SpaceX IPO and the Anthropic IPO.
12. Risks for investors
As exciting as the OpenAI IPO is, the stock will be no sure thing. These points are worth knowing:
- Extreme valuation: $852 billion against around $24 billion in revenue leaves little room for disappointment. A lot of future growth is already priced in.
- Heavy cash burn: Despite record revenue, OpenAI is not yet sustainably profitable. Its spending on compute and staff is huge.
- Governance and structure: The Public Benefit Corporation under a nonprofit parent is unfamiliar to shareholders and limits their say.
- Strong competition: Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI on valuation, and Google is pushing hard into the market with Gemini.
- Dependence on partners: OpenAI relies heavily on Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon for capital and compute. That is a concentration risk.
- IPO timing: A listing this year is ruled out, and CFO Friar is targeting 2027. The valuation can still move in either direction before then.
My take: the OpenAI IPO will be one of the largest in history, and the company sits at the center of the AI revolution. But the valuation assumes that OpenAI keeps its lead and eventually turns profitable. Anyone getting in should know the risks and only invest money they can afford to lose. This is not investment advice, just context.
