OpenAI to Form $10 Billion Joint Venture with Big Four PE Firms to Secure Corporate AI Pipeline Ahead of IPO

According to 1M AI News monitoring, OpenAI is in advanced talks with four private equity firms -- TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital, and Brookfield Asset Management -- planning to establish a joint venture with a pre-money valuation of around $10 billion USD. This joint venture aims to deploy OpenAI's enterprise products to the portfolio companies of these PE firms and the broader market. The PE firms collectively will contribute around $4 billion USD, receiving equity and board seats, with TPG leading the investment. OpenAI is offering preferred shares to investors, providing returns superior to common shareholders and limited downside risk.

Anthropic is also progressing a similar transaction concurrently, negotiating to form a joint venture with Blackstone, Permira, and Hellman & Friedman, with a PE investment scale of around $1 billion USD, but offering common shares without preferred return protection.

Both companies are competing for PE collaboration for the same rationale: PE firms control a significant number of enterprise clients and influence their software and AI budgets, with both aiming for an IPO as early as this year. In the enterprise AI market, Anthropic is widely considered ahead of OpenAI. As of the end of last month, OpenAI's enterprise business had an annualized revenue of $10 billion USD, accounting for 40% of its total annualized revenue of $25 billion USD. The joint venture will also help promote OpenAI's enterprise platform Frontier, launched last month, and its Frontier Alliances program in collaboration with consulting giants like BCG and McKinsey. All parties have not commented on the joint venture plans, and the transaction terms are subject to change.