OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round on March 31 at a valuation of $852 billion, according to trackers of private financing; the largest US startup round announced in 2026 and a sum that would have been inconceivable for any private company two years ago.
SoftBank Group and Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which was disclosed in filings and confirmed by people familiar with the terms. The capital is earmarked overwhelmingly for compute: data centers, chips and the energy contracts required to run them.
Why the Number Is That Big
The AI infrastructure race has concentrated capital among a handful of labs whose products now reach hundreds of millions of users. OpenAI's operating losses have scaled alongside revenue, and investors have effectively underwritten years of capital expenditure on the thesis that model capability compounds faster than costs.
The round set the pace for a record venture year. Anthropic's $65 billion Series H in May and a parade of nine-figure infrastructure deals have since confirmed that 2026 will shatter the annual funding record set in 2021.
