Pre-IPO Employee Liquidity: OpenAI Completes $7 Billion Share Sale

OpenAI completed a secondary share sale worth approximately $7 billion on Monday (the 10th), enabling current and former employees to sell their shares before the company goes public, at a valuation of $852 billion.

According to two sources familiar with the matter, OpenAI directly repurchased shares from current and former employees in this tender offer, which had been in preparation since the company closed a record-breaking funding round in March. The transaction is expected to alleviate short-term liquidity pressures and allow employees to monetize part of their holdings ahead of a potential large-scale initial public offering (IPO).

In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion from major tech companies and venture capital firms, pushing its valuation to $852 billion—a record high for the AI industry at the time. In June, the company confirmed it had confidentially submitted IPO-related documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Large private AI firms often allow insiders to periodically sell portions of their equity to realize gains. In the past, OpenAI invited investors such as Thrive Capital and SoftBank Group to purchase shares from employees.

Since launching the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, OpenAI rapidly entered the mainstream and has since become one of the fastest-growing private companies globally. The company has not yet announced a formal IPO timeline, and competitor Anthropic is currently at a similar stage.

Anthropic, once seen as a laggard in the AI race, has gained momentum with its AI software products and now surpasses OpenAI in valuation, with speculation that it may go public before OpenAI.

For OpenAI, secondary share transactions have become part of its pre-IPO strategy. The company previously completed a $6.6 billion tender offer at a $500 billion valuation in October last year and a $1.5 billion share buyback in 2024.