Two of the largest AI companies in the world are now both in confidential IPO preparation, and whoever goes public first will likely pull in capital the other cannot. This race sets the financial baseline for enterprise AI for years.
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI filed confidentially with the SEC for an IPO, joining rival Anthropic which filed roughly a week earlier
- OpenAI’s last valuation was $852 billion post-money, but the company does not expect positive cash flow until 2030
- Whoever IPOs first will likely capture a larger share of what analysts describe as increasingly scarce AI capital
What Happened
OpenAI filed a confidential draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO, the company confirmed Monday in a blog post.
The filing comes roughly one week after Anthropic submitted its own confidential S-1, turning what had been a product rivalry into a public markets race. No share count, price range, or fundraising target was disclosed.
OpenAI’s last post-money valuation stood at $852 billion, reached after it closed a $122 billion funding round in March 2026, the largest in Silicon Valley history. $3 billion of that came directly from retail investors via bank channels.
The company expects to spend the equivalent of that entire round on computing power for AI research in 2028, and projects burning $85 billion that year even after doubling revenue from the prior year. Positive cash flow is not expected until 2030, per the Wall Street Journal.
Why It Matters
The dual confidential filings create a structural pressure point. Experts cited in a recent Wall Street Journal report say the company that goes public first will likely secure the larger portion of what is becoming scarce capital for AI firms, with SpaceX’s expected IPO at a $1.75 trillion valuation expected to absorb significant investor appetite first.
The skeptic case is real: OpenAI has already missed its own revenue and user targets, per the Wall Street Journal, and CFO Sarah Friar has reportedly flagged concern about the company’s ability to sustain data center spending.
Anthropic, meanwhile, has told investors it is near its first quarterly profit and on secondary markets hit a $1 trillion valuation on Forge Global, surpassing OpenAI’s recorded $880 billion in April. Anthropic’s share price appreciated 123% year-to-date versus OpenAI’s 11.3%, according to David Shapiro, founder and CEO of OpenVC, who oversees the NYSE OpenVC 500 Index.
We haven’t seen OpenAI crater or anything close, and valuation is still enormously successful, according to the index. – David Shapiro, Founder and CEO, OpenVC
Bottom Line
The next signal to watch is which company publishes its S-1 publicly first. Anthropic’s disclosures will set a valuation comp that directly constrains how OpenAI can price its offering, per a recent PitchBook report that viewed OpenAI as overvalued relative to its fundamentals. Timing is everything here, and OpenAI is behind.
For founders and operators evaluating enterprise AI vendors, the IPO race changes the buying calculus. Public filings will surface burn rates, customer concentration, and contract terms that have been shielded until now. Procurement and vendor decisions made before those disclosures are being made with incomplete information, tracked by Relve, an AI trends intelligence platform.
