Senior OpenAI executive: 'Anthropic to IPO before us? It's no cause for concern, we are in a race of our own'
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees that the AI giant plans to go public by 2027, though this timeline could accelerate based on business growth. She emphasized that the potential earlier IPO of competitor Anthropic is not a cause for concern.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees today that the artificial intelligence giant "will be a public company in 2027," but may go public sooner if "our business continues to skyrocket." This is reported by CNBC.
"An IPO is not the finish line, it is a milestone, another fundraising," Friar told employees during a company meeting, according to two sources familiar with the details. According to her, "We raised $122 billion in March, and that gives us flexibility." The aforementioned funding round gave OpenAI a valuation of $852 billion.
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and its rival Anthropic, the developer of Claude, have already filed confidential prospectuses in preparation for an IPO. It is currently estimated that Anthropic will precede OpenAI and go public as early as this coming autumn. In June, OpenAI filed a confidential prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. About a week earlier, competitor Anthropic filed a confidential prospectus.
Friar said today to employees that there is no reason for concern that Anthropic will go public before OpenAI. According to her, "As you know, we filed a confidential prospectus, like Anthropic. There is a chance they will disclose the application in the coming weeks and become a public company in September. That's fine, we are running our own race."
At the meeting with employees, Friar presented data showing that OpenAI's Revenue Run Rate has jumped by 35% since the beginning of the current quarter, the annual revenue run rate from the business sector has jumped by 50% since the beginning of the quarter, and its AI-based programming and work product has reached 20 million active users per week.
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic's annual revenue run rate reached $65 billion at the end of July. This is a significant increase compared to May, when the annual revenue run rate was $47 billion. At the end of 2025, the figure was $9 billion. The company has already surpassed its main rival, OpenAI, by this metric, which recently recorded an annual revenue run rate of more than $40 billion (it is possible that both companies do not measure the figure identically).
