OpenAI Courts Private Equity for $10 Billion Enterprise AI Venture

OpenAI is in advanced talks with major private equity firms to form a joint venture valued at roughly $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal would give the company a faster route into corporate AI adoption while offering PE firms exposure to the enterprise AI market. Under the proposed arrangement, investors including TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management would commit about $4 billion and receive equity stakes in the venture, along with influence over how OpenAIs technology is deployed across their portfolio companies. TPG would serve as the anchor investor, committing the most capital. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are aggressively courting private equity firms because they control enterprise companies and influence how businesses budget for software and AI — a race growing more urgent as both companies vie to go public. OpenAI is offering preferred equity in the venture, a senior class of ownership that gives investors priority returns and limits downside. Anthropic, by contrast, is offering common equity. OpenAIs enterprise business generated $10 billion out of a total annualized revenue of $25 billion as of late February. The joint venture would help distribute OpenAIs enterprise offering, Frontier, which launched last month alongside the Frontier Alliances program pairing OpenAI engineers with consulting giants BCG, McKinsey, Accenture and Capgemini.