Key Notes
- Greg Brockman says OpenAI could be ready for a 2027 IPO, without announcing a listing date, exchange or offer price.
- Enterprise customers now provide most of OpenAI’s revenue, while Brockman says its annualized revenue run rate grew 70% during the third quarter.
- The comments come as OpenAI pursues private funding and rival Anthropic prepares a Nasdaq listing under the proposed ticker ANT.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman said the ChatGPT developer could be ready for an initial public offering in 2027, as sales to businesses overtake consumer revenue and the company seeks fresh capital ahead of a listing.
Asked at a Wall Street Journal technology conference in Napa, California, on Wednesday whether OpenAI would be ready to go public next year, Brockman replied, “I think so,” Reuters reported. He also said enterprise customers now account for most of the company’s revenue.
The remarks give investors a clearer sense of management’s ambitions after OpenAI delayed its IPO plans. They stop short of committing to a launch date, offering price or exchange.
Business Customers Take the Larger Share
The shift puts corporate spending at the center of OpenAI’s growth story. The company has been pushing business sales through products including its Codex coding agent, competing with Anthropic for developers and enterprise customers.
In the Journal’s interview, Brockman said OpenAI’s annualized revenue grew 70% during the third quarter, with the enterprise business doubling. He described a recovery after a difficult first half, when Codex struggled to attract attention.
That 70% figure measures growth in an annualized revenue run rate. It is not the increase in revenue actually recognized over the three-month period. Brockman did not give a dollar total or a precise enterprise share in the remarks reported by Reuters.
OpenAI is also expanding the infrastructure around its developer products. Its planned acquisition of Pierre Computer would bring Code Storage into Codex, extending the agent’s reach into the systems developers use to manage their work. A purchase price and closing date have not been disclosed.
Private Funding Remains on the Agenda
An IPO would follow another effort to raise money privately. OpenAI reduced its reported funding target to about $20 billion from $30 billion in late October, with negotiations pointing to a $1.25 trillion valuation.
The Financial Times reported the smaller goal, while the Journal put commitments secured at roughly $11 billion. Those reports described a financing still taking shape, rather than a completed $20 billion round.
OpenAI has already taken an initial step toward the public market. It confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, according to the Associated Press report. Brockman’s latest comments concern readiness in 2027; they do not establish when that process will result in a listing.
Anthropic Offers an Earlier Test
Anthropic is further along with its public disclosures. Its amended IPO prospectus, filed November 2, showed $16.956 billion in third-quarter revenue and a $567 million operating loss. The company proposes to list on Nasdaq under ANT, although the filing left the offer price and share count blank.
Prospective investors have pushed for a lower valuation closer to $1.5 trillion, below the $2 trillion level previously sought, according to the Journal. The outcome would give investors a public-market benchmark for a major OpenAI rival.
Anthropic’s reported quarterly sales and OpenAI’s annualized growth rate describe different measures. They cannot, on their own, establish how much revenue each company booked in the same period.
The Economics Behind the Growth
OpenAI’s relationships with its infrastructure partners will also matter to prospective shareholders. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recorded $10 billion in commercial revenue from OpenAI in the September quarter, including revenue-sharing payments. It did not separate those payments from cloud-service revenue.
That disclosure shows the scale of the partnership, but does not reveal OpenAI’s own quarterly profit or cash flow. Faster business sales strengthen the revenue story; public investors will also need to see what it costs to deliver them.
Brockman attributed the third-quarter rebound to investments made before the period, including new models and the release of ChatGPT Work. “It wasn’t an accident,” he said.
