OpenAI Closes Record $122 Billion Funding Round as Anthropic Raises $65 Billion

OpenAI has closed what investors describe as the single largest private venture funding round in history, raising $122 billion and pushing its post-money valuation to roughly $852 billion. The round underscores how much capital investors are still willing to commit to frontier AI labs even as questions grow about whether current spending levels are sustainable.

Rival lab Anthropic closed its own $65 billion Series H shortly after, valuing the company at approximately $965 billion. The back-to-back mega-rounds came during a first half of 2026 in which AI startups collectively raised more than $500 billion, with nearly 40 companies crossing unicorn status in just six months.

The scale of the funding has drawn scrutiny from some investors and economists who note that the capital being raised far outstrips current AI industry revenue, raising the stakes for whether the technology's productivity gains materialize quickly enough to justify the valuations.

For now, demand from both venture investors and corporate backers continues to outpace supply of the most sought-after AI equity, with several of this year's largest rounds reported to have been oversubscribed within days of opening.