TechCrunch reported on Saturday that the Financial Times says OpenAI has cut the size of its new funding round. The FT said on Friday that the target is now $20 billion. Earlier reports had put the goal at $30 billion, first at a $1.4 trillion valuation and then at $1.25 trillion. The FT also said the first close, the first batch of money, should come in below $20 billion.
The FT said investors from the United Arab Emirates will lead the round. It said a later sale to wealthy individuals could lift the total to the $20 billion target. The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI has secured $11 billion so far. The Journal also said some large investors gave the effort a cool response. TechCrunch said it had asked OpenAI for comment, and no reply is reported. The reports do not name the individual investors or give a closing date.
TechCrunch said bad timing may explain part of the trouble. It wrote that Wall Street investors have grown wary of heavy spending on AI infrastructure, and that tech stocks have sold off sharply. For teams that build on or buy OpenAI tools, these are funding reports, not product news. They do not say whether any OpenAI product or price will change.