OpenAI nears $40B funding as ChatGPT revenue set to triple to $12.7 billion by 2025

OpenAI’s dominance in artificial intelligence is about to get a $40 billion vote of confidence. The ChatGPT maker is reportedly closing in on one of the largest private funding rounds ever, one that would push its valuation to a staggering $300 billion.

The round is being led by SoftBank, which plans to kick in $7.5 billion initially, followed by another $22.5 billion later this year. Other backers in the mix include Magnetar Capital, Coatue, and Founders Fund.

“OpenAI is close to finalizing a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp. — with investors including Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund, and Altimeter Capital Management in talks to participate, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

If finalized, the deal would mark a historic milestone in private fundraising—and send a clear message that investors are still bullish on OpenAI’s future, despite sky-high operating costs and lingering questions around sustainability. The company reportedly lost as much as $5 billion on $3.7 billion in revenue in 2024, mostly due to the steep price tag of building and training its models.

Still, OpenAI is projecting big things ahead: $12.7 billion in revenue by 2025 and more than $125 billion by 2029, when it expects to become cash-flow positive.

That optimism is also tied to scale. In February, COO Brad Lightcap revealed that ChatGPT now has over 400 million weekly active users—a 33% jump from the 300 million reported in December. Those numbers hadn’t been shared publicly until now.

The upcoming funding will also help support Stargate, OpenAI’s $300 billion AI infrastructure venture with SoftBank and Oracle, which was first announced in January. The joint project aims to build out massive compute capacity in the U.S., as demand for large language models continues to surge.

So what’s behind OpenAI’s continued rise?

ChatGPT remains the go-to AI tool for millions of users, from developers and marketers to students and corporate teams. Its consistently strong performance on industry benchmarks has helped it stay ahead of rivals like Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Mistral.

Part of its momentum comes from word-of-mouth adoption and deeper integration into everyday workflows. From the day ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it took just five days to reach its first million users—and the growth hasn’t slowed since.

OpenAI has also been releasing faster and more efficient versions of its models, like GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-4o. Meanwhile, its deep partnership with Microsoft continues to widen distribution, embedding OpenAI tech into Office, Azure, and beyond.

Of course, scaling a company at this pace isn’t easy. Growing infrastructure demands have led to occasional outages and user frustrations. But the company is betting big—financially and operationally—that it can stay ahead.

The big question now: is this the safest bet in tech? Or one of the boldest?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman