OpenAI courts private equity to join enterprise AI venture, sources say

NEW YORK, March 16 (Reuters) – OpenAI is in advanced talks with private equity firms including TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management to form a joint venture that would distribute its enterprise products to the firms’ portfolio companies and beyond, four people familiar with the matter said.

The proposed deal has a pre-money valuation of about $10 billion and could offer OpenAI a faster path to enterprise adoption while also providing PE firms with a potential lifeline for companies facing AI disruption in their portfolios, two people said.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are aggressively flirting with private equity firms because they control enterprise companies and influence businesses’ budgets for software and AI, the three people said; That race becomes even more urgent as both companies race to go public this year.

OpenAI declined to comment on its joint venture plans. Advent, TPG and Brookfield declined to comment. Bain did not respond to requests for comment.

Under the proposed arrangement, private equity investors would commit about $4 billion and take an equity stake in the startup, as well as influence over how OpenAI technology is deployed at portfolio companies, two of the sources said.

TPG will serve as the lead investor committing the most capital, while Advent, Bain and Brookfield will participate as co-founding investors. According to sources close to the matter, all four companies will take part in the joint venture and warned that no final decision has been made and plans may change.

The arrangement will also give PE firms early access to OpenAI’s enterprise tools and the potential to benefit as adoption expands beyond their portfolios, two people familiar with the talks said.

The sources requested anonymity because the conversations were private.

Anthropic is also in talks with private equity firms including Blackstone, Permira and Hellman & Friedman to form a joint venture that would sell its Claude AI technology to companies backed by those firms, according to one of the sources familiar with the matter.

As part of the deal, PE firms will receive approximately $1 billion in equity stakes, the person said, noting that plans, including the numbers, are subject to change and a final agreement has not yet been reached.

The Information first reported last week that the Claude maker was in talks to form a joint venture with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman.

Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Permira declined to comment, while Anthropic did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

OpenAI is offering investors in the startup “preferred equity,” a senior ownership class that provides priority returns over common shareholders and limits downside, the three people said.

By contrast, Anthropic offers shared equity that does not come with those protections, one of the sources said.

Potential deals emerge as artificial intelligence turns private equity investment calculus on its head. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has rattled valuations in the software industry, making it harder for buyout companies to undertake deals with confidence and raising troubling questions about the long-term viability of business models that automation could render obsolete.

In the enterprise AI market, Anthropic is seen ahead of OpenAI, with stronger adoption among enterprise customers. As of the end of last month, OpenAI’s enterprise business generated $10 billion of total annual revenue of $25 billion, one of the sources said.

The deal could also help distribute OpenAI’s enterprise offering, Frontier, one of the sources said. The platform, which launched last month, includes a program called Frontier Alliances, Reuters reported last month; Through this program, OpenAI pairs its forward-deployed engineers with consulting giants BCG, McKinsey, Accenture and Capgemini to help companies integrate AI agents into core business processes.

“As demand for artificial intelligence continues to grow rapidly, we want to help our customers use these technologies in all the ways that will help them make an impact,” OpenAI Applications CEO Fidji Simo told Reuters in an emailed statement. he said.

“That’s why we recently announced Frontier Alliances to strengthen our partner ecosystem, and why we’re also building a deployment arm that works directly with organizations and partners to deeply embed AI throughout their organizations. We’ll have more to share once the details are finalized,” Simo said.

(Reporting by Milana Vinn and Echo Wang in New York; Editing by Sonali Paul and Alexander Smith)