OpenAI has wrapped a $7 billion tender offer that allowed existing investors and employees to sell shares at a $122 billion valuation, the company said. The sale follows OpenAI's Series D funding round in March, which raised $120 billion and set the company's valuation at the same level.
The secondary offering, which the company announced, is structured differently from the Series D. Rather than new capital flowing into OpenAI, the $7 billion transaction allows early shareholders and staff with equity stakes to liquidate holdings ahead of a potential public listing. Such tenders typically precede IPO filings because they reduce the pool of pre-public shareholders who must be accommodated in regulatory filings and cap tables.
OpenAI has not filed for an IPO nor announced a timeline to go public. The company's potential entry to public markets would be one of the largest tech debuts on record. Comparable recent IPOs in enterprise software and AI include Databricks, valued at $43 billion in its last private round, and earlier mega-rounds by Stripe and SpaceX that have not yet resulted in public filings. OpenAI's $122 billion valuation would rank it among the highest-valued private companies globally alongside Bytedance and Stripe.
The March funding round included participation from Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and others, according to statements at the time. OpenAI's capital raises in the past 18 months have totaled over $240 billion including the Series D and related tranches. The company has spent substantially on infrastructure and research as it competes with other large language model developers including Anthropic, which raised $20 billion in March, and Google DeepMind.
Tender offers in the private company space have grown common as late-stage startups delay IPO timelines. Stripe and SpaceX conducted their own secondary offerings before accumulating multi-hundred-billion-dollar valuations. The mechanics allow private companies to manage shareholder bases and provide liquidity without triggering the regulatory and disclosure requirements of public markets.
OpenAI completed the $7 billion tender at the same $122 billion valuation it reached four months prior. The size of the secondary offer equals roughly 6 percent of OpenAI's stated market cap. If OpenAI were to file for an IPO in 2026 or 2027, the tender would reduce the number of early employees and investors seeking liquidity in the public offering itself.
