OpenAI nears $10b funding led by MGX, Thrive Capital: sources

OpenAI is close to raising about US$10 billion from venture investors including Abu Dhabi’s MGX, Coatue Management, and Thrive Capital, people familiar with the matter said.

The deal would value the ChatGPT maker at about US$730 billion before the new money, with Altimeter Capital also planning to invest, the people said.

The funding is expected to be finalized by the end of March, though talks are ongoing, and the amount could change, the people said.

OpenAI said last month it had finalized a deal to raise US$110 billion from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank Group, and the new money would lift the round’s total to around US$120 billion, while the company’s valuation would be about US$850 billion including the cash raised, the people said.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

OpenAI’s funding strategy uses unusual guarantees to speed up enterprise distribution

OpenAI is going beyond equity sales and setting up a separate enterprise joint venture to push adoption 1.
The venture gives private equity partners such as TPG (a private equity firm) a guaranteed minimum return of 17.5%, a rare deal term aimed at beating rivals 2.
The plan skips slow, deal-by-deal selling and aims to roll out its tools across hundreds of private equity-owned companies in one move 1.
Competition from Anthropic (an AI startup and OpenAI rival) plays a role, plus financial strain at OpenAI, since internal projections put a $14 billion loss in 2026 alone 1.

The AI funding race is reshaping the global tech supply chain

AI funding is flowing into day-to-day work, plus huge buildouts such as the planned $500 billion “Stargate” data center project with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank 3.
This funding pressure can lock AI labs into close ties with a small group of cloud providers, chipmakers, or sovereign wealth funds that can bankroll projects at that scale.
Some backers spread bets across rivals, including Abu Dhabi’s MGX, which supports OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI (Elon Musk’s AI company) 4.
This concentration can raise barriers for newcomers building foundational models, which could steer the market toward an oligopoly tied to capital and computing access 3.