On April 8, Reuters reported OpenAI plans to reserve a portion of its shares from an upcoming initial public offering for individual investors, CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC on Wednesday. This news arrives as the popular ChatGPT maker gears up for a highly anticipated U.S. stock market listing.
The artificial intelligence startup is currently laying the groundwork for an IPO that could value the enterprise at up to $1 trillion. OpenAI may file with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, Reuters reported last year.
Friar told CNBC that the company started testing the waters with retail participation in its latest funding round and witnessed "really strong demand" from individuals. While she did not comment on the exact IPO timeline, she explained that it is "good hygiene" for a company of OpenAI's size to "look, feel, and act like a public company."
OpenAI successfully raised over $3 billion from individual investors in its latest funding cycle. The technology firm closed the round with $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion.
Initially, the company targeted $1 billion from individual investors via private placements through banks like JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. However, they ended up securing three times that amount in the largest private placement those banks have ever done, Friar noted.
Large institutional investors have historically been the primary recipients of IPO allocations, with retail investors typically receiving only 5% to 10% of shares in public offerings. This trend is shifting. Billionaire Elon Musk is planning to allocate as much as 30% of SpaceX's upcoming IPO to individual investors, at least three times the usual retail slice. SpaceX confidentially filed for a U.S. market debut earlier this month. These recent developments indicate a growing shift toward expanding access for retail investors.