OpenAI has banked about $11 billion in new funding, the first close of a round that prices the company at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, according to people familiar with the deal cited by 24/7 Wall St. The money landed by Friday, November 6, 2026, and CFO Sarah Friar confirmed the valuation figure in a television interview. OpenAI declined to comment on the funding.
The number matters because it is lower than what OpenAI had reportedly been asking for. Press reports said the company initially sought $30 billion or more at a $1.4 trillion valuation, with some investors putting the first ask at $1.5 trillion. Friar pushed back on air, saying the higher figure originated in a media report and never came from OpenAI. Either way, the round closed smaller and cheaper after a selloff in AI stocks, even as the company says its business is accelerating.
What OpenAI's $1.25T valuation means for Microsoft and NVIDIA
The gap between the ask and the close lands on two giants. Microsoft and NVIDIA both depend on OpenAI's ability to fund its plans, but not in the same way. Microsoft's exposure runs mostly through accounting: gains on its OpenAI stake added $207 million to GAAP net income in the September quarter, against $3.1 billion in net losses a year earlier. A smaller valuation increase trims future gains on that stake, though the effect is minor next to 48% Azure growth.
NVIDIA's exposure is more direct. The chipmaker has said OpenAI's existing and planned commitments add up to about 12 gigawatts of its compute, and management has warned that frontier labs "are growing faster than what their balance sheets and credit profiles can support." A round that fills in stages points to exactly that strain. Microsoft closed at $530.61, down 0.99%, while NVIDIA rose 2.78% to $186.64 as chip stocks rallied.
OpenAI funding round: the key numbers
Not everything about the round has been disclosed. Lead investors, terms and use of proceeds were not made public. Friar described the price as almost 50% above March, when OpenAI raised $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation. The implied step-up is roughly 46.7%, but treat it as approximate: her figure is pre-money and the March basis is unclear.
On the business side, Friar said OpenAI grew 70% quarter over quarter in the third quarter, its enterprise business doubled, and revenue splits about 50-50 between consumer and enterprise. She cited 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users and an ads run rate of $1 billion by August, without giving revenue dollar figures. Asked about the election, she said simply that demand for AI is real.
