$852 billion in March. More than $1.4 trillion now, if the round closes. Roughly $30 billion of new money, with SoftBank, MGX and other existing backers in talks to join. And a deadline nobody announced: Reuters reported Monday that OpenAI is racing to lock in commitments before Anthropic's expected public debut in mid-November.
The obvious reading is a scramble for cash, two labs fishing in one pond of long-only and sovereign money. That reading is true as far as it goes. A line further down the story says what the hurry is about: OpenAI wants the round done before Anthropic's financial disclosures "invite comparisons between the two companies."
That's the race. Not Anthropic's money. Anthropic's yardstick. Right now there is no honest way to set the two companies side by side, because they don't count revenue the same way. OpenAI books revenue net, subtracting partners' shares up front. It has accused Anthropic of booking the gross value of contracts sold through third-party clouds; Anthropic says it follows established accounting practice. Same industry, same customers, two currencies.
Run the multiples anyway and watch them refuse to sit still. OpenAI is pitching $50 billion in annualized revenue, net, rising to $70 billion by year-end. At $1.4 trillion that's 28 times today's run rate, or 20 times the projection. Anthropic booked $16.8 billion in third-quarter revenue, about $67 billion annualized. Its hoped-for $2 trillion is 30 times that; the roughly $1.5 trillion some investors now want after a quarter that fell short of expectations is about 22. Which lab is cheaper? That depends on how much of Anthropic's $67 billion is a cloud provider's dollar passing through. Nobody outside the two companies knows. The prospectus is where that number starts to come out.
Once it comes out for one lab, the question lands on the other. Reuters' source expects the disclosures to send investors back to OpenAI's CFO, Sarah Friar, for more detail on growth and outlook. A comparable doesn't just reprice a company. It sets the disclosure bar for everyone measured against it. OpenAI would rather its price were agreed before that bar exists.
A comparable doesn't just reprice a company. It sets the disclosure bar for everyone measured against it.
The fair objection: these aren't retail buyers. SoftBank and MGX are existing backers, and nobody writes a check this size without diligence. If the round moves fast, that's demand, not concealment. Grant all of it. A data room tells you what OpenAI's revenue is. It can't tell you what that revenue is worth next to the only other company of its kind, because the other half of the comparison isn't in OpenAI's data room. That half is what the long-only and sovereign funds OpenAI met last week will price against, and it's where their money goes if it doesn't go to OpenAI.
Growth is the stronger defense. OpenAI says revenue accelerated after GPT-6 Astra, while Anthropic's month-to-month growth has slowed, and a steeper slope earns a richer multiple. True. But a slope that steep survives a comparable. You race the yardstick when you aren't sure how you'll measure.
Private rounds set a price by agreement. Public markets set one by disagreement, every trading day. OpenAI wants its number agreed while there are still two currencies.