Just a week after Anthropic confidentially filed for its own IPO and days before Elon Musk's SpaceX is expected to make its public market debut, OpenAI has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), joining a growing list of high-profile technology companies preparing for Wall Street.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, most recently reached a post-money valuation of roughly $852 billion. Anthropic was recently valued at $965 billion after a Series H funding, while SpaceX is expected to pursue a valuation of about $1.77 trillion in its upcoming public debut, according to CNBC.
By filing confidentially, OpenAI can submit financial information to regulators for review before publicly releasing those details. The company is reportedly targeting a market debut as early as the fourth quarter of this year.
Its filing is also the latest sign that some of the world's most valuable private technology companies are beginning to look beyond venture capital and private funding markets as they pursue their next phase of growth.
Why AI companies suddenly need Wall Street
The timing isn't accidental. Building frontier AI systems has become increasingly expensive. Companies are spending billions of dollars on computing infrastructure, advanced chips, data centres, research talent, and model development as they compete to build more capable AI systems.
Those costs are pushing even the world's best-funded AI companies to seek larger pools of capital.
"These companies are now burning through cash to win the AI race, and public equity is the cheapest source available, particularly in a rising interest rate environment," Michael Field, chief equity analyst at Morningstar, told NBC Bay Area.
For years, much of the AI boom has been financed by venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds, and strategic investors. Public listings could open the sector to a much broader group of institutional and retail investors.
The emerging IPO wave
While SpaceX is primarily known for aerospace and satellite communications, its close ties to Elon Musk's xAI have increasingly linked it to the broader artificial intelligence investment narrative.
Together, OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX represent more than $3.5 trillion in combined private-market value, making their public market plans some of the most closely watched listings in recent memory.
The first real test of AI on Wall Street
The significance of these IPOs extends beyond the companies themselves. For years, investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence has largely been reflected through private funding rounds. Public listings will provide one of the clearest indications yet of whether that enthusiasm translates to public markets.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas believes the outcome could have consequences across the broader AI sector.
"I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don't go well. There is no sugar coating on that. The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator to how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out," Srinivas told CNBC.
Despite that, he remains optimistic.
"I think it's important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they're doing well," he added.
Although only a handful of AI companies are currently pursuing public listings, their performance could influence investor sentiment toward the next generation of AI startups seeking access to public markets.
Among those watching closely is Perplexity, which remains on track for its own planned public debut in 2028.
"Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028, so that still remains the case," Srinivas said.
For now, OpenAI's filing marks another step in the AI industry's gradual transition from a private-market phenomenon to one increasingly shaped by public investors. Whether Wall Street embraces these companies at the same valuations private investors have assigned them may become one of the defining financial questions of the next phase of the AI boom.
Damilare Odedina
