OpenAI annualized revenue surpasses $40 billion! Strong new growth momentum ahead of potential IPO

According to The Zhichong Finance APP, according to sources, OpenAI's current annualized revenue has exceeded $40 billion, roughly doubling by the end of 2025. This performance further strengthens the company's confidence as it prepares for a public listing. Sources said that OpenAI's revenue growth has accelerated in recent months, partly due to the rapid development of its artificial intelligence (AI) programming software business. The growth in revenue also reflects the continued momentum of subscription sales and the nascent advertising business. At the same time, OpenAI's core consumer business continues to grow.

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman stated that the company's annualized revenue in July grew by more than 20% month-on-month. Recently, demand in the AI agent sector has notably increased for OpenAI, with key products including the programming tool Codex and the general assistant ChatGPT Work. Meanwhile, OpenAI has reduced the prices of some models to respond more flexibly to the challenges posed by Anthropic and numerous competitors. On Thursday, OpenAI appointed its second new Chief Revenue Officer in less than a year and brought in an executive from the cybersecurity field to help drive sales growth.

OpenAI is currently engaged in fierce competition with Anthropic to capture more enterprise clients. Both companies have secretly submitted filings for an IPO, with Anthropic expected to go public as soon as this fall, potentially earlier than OpenAI. Once considered the pursuer, Anthropic is now gaining increasing market attention with its AI tools capable of simplifying complex tasks, including programming. In May this year, Anthropic announced that its annualized revenue had exceeded $4.7 billion, although the two companies may calculate this metric differently.

Repurchasing $7 Billion in Employee Shares to Prepare for Potential IPO

In addition to strong performance, recent news about OpenAI repurchasing $7 billion in employee shares also suggests the company may be preparing in advance for its initial public offering (IPO). According to sources, this tender offer transaction involves OpenAI buying back shares from current and former employees, rather than seeking external investor participation as before—for example, OpenAI previously invited investors like Thrive Capital and SoftBank Group to buy employee-held company shares. Sources said this transaction values the startup at $85.2 billion, in line with its most recent fundraising valuation.

The stock buyback transaction began preparations after OpenAI completed a record $12.2 billion funding round in March. The deal will help alleviate recent liquidity pressures, allowing employees to sell part of their shares and cash out partially before a possible large-scale IPO.

Secondary market stock sales have already become part of OpenAI's pre-IPO strategy. In October last year, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion stock tender offer, with the company's valuation reaching $50 billion. In addition, OpenAI also completed a $1.5 billion stock tender offer transaction in 2024.

The later the company goes public, the more likely employee stock options and restricted stock become tax and cash flow issues. According to Caplight CEO Javier Avalos, OpenAI employees have already fully vested and held stock for some time, and at this stage, the company feels the pressure to provide liquidity for employees. Employee stock sales led by the company are the main channel for employees to monetize equity before an IPO. In addition, some employees sell shares through separate secondary transactions.

However, employee share sales can only ease internal liquidity pressure and cannot solve the capital needs of frontier model companies. The Information points out that for OpenAI and its competitor Anthropic, an IPO would allow them to raise tens of billions of dollars for training and operating models. The two companies are expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on compute services in the future.

Not all employees are willing to sell before the company goes public. The Information mentioned that an Anthropic employee share sale earlier this year ultimately raised less than the previously reported $5–6 billion in investor purchase intentions. One possible reason is that some employees believe it will be more profitable to sell after the IPO. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic have recently been cracking down on unauthorized stock sales, such as private transfers through special purpose vehicles. For AI companies preparing to go public or continue large-scale fundraising, maintaining order in equity trading is itself a part of pre-IPO preparations.

IPO Timeline May Be Delayed to 2027

In addition, reports say that OpenAI has significantly stepped back from its initial ambition to go public as soon as this fall, and now clearly leans towards postponing the IPO timeline to 2027. Behind this delay is a direct confrontation between CEO Sam Altman's insistence on a trillion-dollar valuation floor and harsh market realities.

The dramatic post-IPO stock price swings of SpaceX (SPCX.US) have posed a direct psychological deterrent to OpenAI's IPO plans. Bankers advising OpenAI on the IPO have clearly warned that recent volatility in technology stocks and the sharp decline in SpaceX shares after its IPO may severely dampen retail investor enthusiasm for OpenAI's stock. According to a source familiar with recent discussions, OpenAI's advisers bluntly told the company in the past week that retail investors may lack enthusiasm for its shares.

OpenAI's valuation dilemma is at the core of the decision to delay. In March 2026, OpenAI completed a $12.2 billion funding round, with a post-investment valuation of $85.2 billion—the highest for any unlisted tech company in the world. However, this achievement is far from Altman's internal expectations. According to insiders, Altman has been urging advisers, including bankers and lawyers, to figure out how to push the IPO valuation up to $1 trillion.

The advisory team has put forward two options to Altman: one, delay the IPO until 2027, waiting for market conditions to improve while bringing the company's financial performance closer to the $1 trillion valuation goal; two, go public by the end of 2026 but accept a lower valuation. According to a person who has interacted with Altman, when advisers presented this choice, Altman said any plan that brings the valuation below $1 trillion is "not feasible."

Meanwhile, OpenAI's financial condition is also testing investors' patience. Last year, the company posted a net loss of $3.85 billion, mainly due to massive spending on infrastructure for compute, R&D investment, and enterprise restructuring. According to The Information, OpenAI burned through $3.7 billion in cash in the first quarter of 2026, more than half the $5.7 billion in revenue for the same period. The company expects to spend $60 billion on compute and hardware by 2030.

According to sources, some major OpenAI investors have privately expressed concerns in recent months about the company's cash burn rate relative to its growth, while others are hedging their bets on OpenAI by investing in Anthropic.

OpenAI is not alone in postponing. Analysis indicates that large AI model company IPOs, originally scheduled for the second half of 2026, may be delayed to the first half of 2027 due to a decline in market risk appetite and uncertainties in liquidity conditions. The timing adjustment for IPO means the company's much-anticipated public listing plan will be significantly later than the market previously expected this fall.

The most straightforward interpretation of the 2027 timeline is that OpenAI has the capacity to wait. By postponing, the company can continue expanding usage, refining pricing, and seeking a more stable business portfolio among consumer products, enterprise tools, and infrastructure partners before entering the public markets and becoming subject to the discipline of quarterly reporting.