This year has been a massive one for initial public offerings in the tech space, from Cerebras Systems‘ operation in May to Space Exploration Technologies‘ IPO early this month. Cerebras, raising $5.5 billion, was the biggest year-to-date — and then SpaceX, raising $75 billion, completed the world’s largest. (That number increased to more than $85 billion after SpaceX’s underwriters exercised an overallotment option.)
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab behind the Claude model, and OpenAI, known for ChatGPT, each filed confidentially for IPOs in recent weeks, too, allowing investors to imagine operations for them at some point this year. Still, these players didn’t announce potential dates or further details.
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And now, the latest news suggests OpenAI’s operation may come later than investors were expecting. OpenAI is considering whether it should delay its IPO until next year in order to have a better chance of attaining a $1 trillion valuation, according to The New York Times. Should this move prompt you to worry about AI stocks? Let’s find out.
OpenAI: a key player in the AI boom
So, first, a bit more detail about the OpenAI situation. OpenAI has been one of the key players in the AI story, thanks to the popularity of ChatGPT. The company is seen as one of the main drivers of this revolution and has gained the support of one of the world’s biggest tech companies: Microsoft has invested about $13 billion in OpenAI. And OpenAI in March completed a record funding round of $122 billion to reach a valuation of $852 billion.
For quite some time, investors have been anticipating an OpenAI IPO and watching eagerly for a filing. The company partially satisfied that curiosity a few weeks ago when it said that it confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A confidential filing means the company hasn’t yet made its financial statements available to the public and has only offered them to regulators for an early review.
OpenAI didn’t set a date for its IPO or even offer any general time frame, but given the timing of the confidential filing, investors speculated that it likely would happen in the coming months. Last week, though, The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, said OpenAI is considering a delay, pushing the potential IPO to next year when it may obtain a higher valuation. The newspaper mentioned the path of SpaceX stock, which has declined from its post-IPO peak.
