Originally published on andrew.ooo
TL;DR: OpenAI closed a $110 billion funding round—the largest private tech financing in history—from Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B). The company is now valued at $730 billion pre-money ($840 billion post-money). This dwarfs the previous record of $40 billion raised just one year ago.
The Numbers That Shattered Records
When OpenAI announced its March 2025 funding round of $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation, it was already the largest private funding in history. One year later, the company has nearly tripled that record.
The $110 billion breakdown:
| Investor | Investment | Key Commitment |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | $50 billion | $100B AWS infrastructure expansion |
| Nvidia | $30 billion | 5GW compute on Vera Rubin systems |
| SoftBank | $30 billion | Strategic partnership |
Valuation jump:
- March 2025: $300 billion
- February 2026: $730 billion pre-money ($840B post-money)
- Increase: 143% in 12 months
This makes OpenAI more valuable than Meta (~$620B market cap).
Why Amazon Wrote the Biggest Check
Amazon's $50 billion isn't just a bet on AI—it's a strategic infrastructure play:
- $100B additional AWS partnership (total ~$138B with previous $38B)
- 2GW of AWS Trainium compute committed
- "Stateful runtime environment" for OpenAI models on Amazon Bedrock
- Custom models for Amazon consumer products
The kicker: $35 billion of Amazon's investment is contingent on OpenAI achieving AGI or completing an IPO by end of 2026.
Nvidia's $30 Billion Bet
Nvidia secures OpenAI as a major customer for next-gen Vera Rubin GPUs:
- 3GW dedicated inference capacity
- 2GW training capacity on Vera Rubin
- That's 5GW total—equivalent to a mid-sized city's power consumption
As Jensen Huang said in January: "We will invest a great deal of money. I believe in OpenAI."
OpenAI's Revenue Trajectory
| Year | ARR | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $2B | Baseline |
| 2024 | $6B | 3x YoY |
| 2025 | $20B+ | 3.3x YoY |
That's 10x revenue growth in 2 years.
- 400M+ weekly active users on ChatGPT
- 5.4B monthly visits (June 2025)
- 33% gross margin (inference costs = $8.4B in 2025)
What This Means
- Infrastructure is the new moat - Models are commoditizing; scale differentiates
- Hyperscalers are all-in - Amazon, Nvidia making massive strategic bets
- IPO likely in 2026 - $35B contingent on it
- Competition heating up - Anthropic seeking $5B at $170B valuation
For Comparison
| Company | Round | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (2026) | This round | $110B |
| OpenAI (2025) | Previous | $40B |
| SpaceX | All rounds combined | ~$10B |
| Uber IPO | IPO | $8.1B |
OpenAI raised more in one round than SpaceX raised in 20+ years.
📖 Read the full article with complete analysis: andrew.ooo/posts/openai-110b-funding-round-2026
Top comments (0)