OpenAI starts IPO process with SEC filing
Hot on the heels of SpaceX and Anthropic, OpenAI, the latest tech firm set for a 'mega IPO' in 2026, is preparing the third phase of its evolution to democratise AI
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has joined the race between the three tech giants set to list in 2026, each tipped for a landmark initial public offering (IPO).
One week after Anthropic filed its own paperwork to the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and in the same week as SpaceX is expected to float, OpenAI kicked off its own IPO process.
In a brief post on its website on Monday 8 June, OpenAI said: “We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
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Filing a ‘confidential’ S-1 form means the SEC can review a company’s financials before having to make them publicly available, which can mitigate the level of market speculation ahead of an IPO.
How much is OpenAI worth?
At the end of March, OpenAI closed its latest funding round, with $122 billion of committed capital co-led by SoftBank, which – post-money – values the AI company at around $852 billion. Dwarfed by the $1.75 trillion SpaceX is said to be valued at, OpenAI ranks behind Anthropic’s latest valuation of $965 billion.
It said it was generating $2 billion in monthly revenue, a growth rate it claims is four times faster than “the companies who defined the internet and mobile eras, including Alphabet and Meta”.
At the time, the company also extended its availability to bank channels in a bid to attract investment from individual investors, which include via several exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from ARK Invest, which own the stock.
OpenAI’s democratic third phase
Alongside confirmation of its S-1 filing, OpenAI said it was entering its third phase.
Having spearheaded the consumer-facing AI boom when it launched ChatGPT in 2022, as of February it had around 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million paying subscribers.
OpenAI has set out its three main goals: to build an automated AI researcher; accelerate the economy; and give everyone on earth an artificial general intelligence (AGI).
A blog by CEO Sam Altman and chief scientist Jakub Pachocki dated 8 June said its first phase had been about doing research toward AGI, its second began "when our research became relevant to the real world and we became a product company."
"Now we are entering the third phase. The economy is beginning to reshape around AI. The central question now is how to make advanced AI abundant, affordable, safe, useful and easy enough for every person and organisation to benefit from it."
In the article, they said rather than concentrating AI’s power in too few hands, which history shows creates fragility, the future needs a broad distribution of that power, which makes societies more "resilient, adaptable and free".
"That is why access matters. It is also why safety, privacy, affordability, open ecosystems, and public oversight matter," they said.
