OpenAI Files Confidential IPO Prospectus Ahead of Public Offering

The artificial intelligence company OpenAI is joining SpaceX and Anthropic in filing a prospectus ahead of an initial public offering. The company confirmed last night that it had submitted a confidential prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), officially launching the process for its first public offering (IPO). According to estimates, the anticipated offering could value the company at more than $1 trillion.

The announcement comes just days before the expected public offering of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The company, which also includes the artificial intelligence venture xAI, is valued at $1.78 trillion and plans to raise a record $86 billion in the offering. At the same time, Anthropic, OpenAI’s main rival, filed a prospectus last week ahead of its own IPO. Based on its most recent funding round, Anthropic is valued at $900 billion.

Many companies, including Anthropic, prefer to file confidential prospectuses in order to keep their financial data out of public view while the SEC reviews the documents. This step also allows startups to gauge investor demand, make changes and sometimes even cancel their IPO plans altogether.

OpenAI’s offering, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot, will be a test of investor appetite for a company that is reporting rapid revenue growth, but is also accumulating huge losses expected to continue for years because of heavy spending on data centers and other infrastructure. Even so, it is considered one of the highest-valued private companies, with more than 900 million weekly active users for its chatbot. In March, it completed a funding round in which it raised $3 billion from retail investors.

In a statement released by the company, it said, “The timing of the offering has not yet been decided, and it may still be some time, since there are things we want to do that are easier to do as a private company.” However, the company added, “This step gives us the option to go public faster, if that turns out to be the best option.”

The company also intends to hold a secondary share sale for employees before the IPO, at the current valuation of $852 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. These moves are getting underway less than a month after the company won the high-profile lawsuit filed by Musk against it and against CEO Sam Altman.