OpenAI could be IPO ready in 2027, Brockman says

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said the company could be ready for an IPO in 2027, TechCrunch reported, after he spoke Wednesday at a Wall Street Journal tech conference. Asked whether OpenAI would be IPO-ready next year, he answered, "I think so. Yes." He said enterprise is now the majority of revenue, up from about 30% earlier, and that third-quarter annualized revenue grew 70% quarter over quarter as the enterprise side roughly doubled. He pointed to a partnership with JPMorgan Chase as one example of the clients OpenAI is winning.

That timeline sits next to a fresh community pitch on infrastructure. On Thursday, CNBC reported that OpenAI published commitments for data centers it owns and operates: pay the full cost of powering those sites, solicit community input, publish construction plans, and stay away from nondisclosure agreements with public officials. OpenAI's own post adds water and electricity reporting, independent noise studies, and a policy blueprint it wants lawmakers to turn into rules. The pledges follow midterm votes that, CNBC said, backed restrictions or rejected pro-development measures in all but one of 41 local ballot measures across 10 states.

A day later, CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC the company will keep investing in AI infrastructure despite those election results. "When I think about the midterms, I need to keep thinking about how do we keep investing to meet that customer demand," she said, adding that raising capital remains part of that path. A pledge to cover power costs is not the same figure as a fundraising target, and neither is a forecast of when the company might list.

The money side is still in motion. The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had secured about $11 billion in commitments toward a round whose earlier target was $30 billion, and that the company planned to seek more from family offices and high-net-worth investors to reach as much as $20 billion. CNBC confirmed the cut to up to $20 billion on Oct. 31, citing a person familiar with the deal, and said the Financial Times had reported a $1.25 trillion post-money valuation for the round. CNBC also said the round was still open and the figures could change. On Nov. 6, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI has now raised about $11 billion as the first part of the round, at a $1.25 trillion valuation, with the round expected to close in the coming weeks at about $20 billion, according to TechCrunch and Investing.com. Money raised so far, a target, and a valuation are three different numbers.

Those fundraising talks land in the same week investors reassessed AI listings. Our piece on Anthropic's IPO valuation talks covered prospective investors discussing a lower range for Anthropic after Thursday's chip-stock selloff. Brockman's 2027 comment is not a filed price range, unlike Anthropic's S-1, which has been public since Oct 26, and the OpenAI round has not closed. The JPMorgan work he cited overlaps with OpenAI's cybersecurity push around GPT-6 Cyber and Daybreak, which is a product story, not a substitute for the funding or IPO calendar.