Wednesday, June 17, 2026

OpenAI’s balance sheet remains the most mysterious—and consequential—in business

Open AI Sam Altman.

Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

OpenAI’s balance sheet leaked, and it’s hard to know what to think.

A combination of blogger Ed Zitron and the Financial Times reported that OpenAI’s 2025 financials look, well, pretty rough.

A few key (reported) numbers to turn over in your head:

In 2025, OpenAI’s revenue came out to $13.07 billion, up from $3.7 billion in 2024. That makes enough sense—ChatGPT, a consumer blockbuster, this month hit one billion global active monthly users. (The company was last valued at $852 billion.) More concerning are the company’s expenses and losses: In 2025, OpenAI’s total costs and expenses came out to a staggering $34 billion (up from $12.48 billion in 2024). Likewise, losses from operations reached $20.92 billion in 2025, up from $8.78 billion in 2024.

I’ll state the obvious: By any normal rules of accounting and expectations from giant companies, these numbers look bad. That’s especially true if you consider rival Anthropic, with its $965 billion valuation and annualized revenue run rate around $47 billion (losses and expenses remain distinctly unknown).

That said, I had a strange, underwhelmed reaction to these numbers. First, that’s perhaps partly because these are leaked and I’m paranoid: If I haven’t seen something with my own eyes—no matter how much I might respect others’ reporting—my first inclination is generally to reserve judgment. And in this case, an OpenAI IPO may very well be imminent and we will ultimately see the final versions of these financials in the coming months.

There’s still a lot of mystery here, because these numbers pose lots of questions about OpenAI’s public market prospects and future: What story exactly does the company hope to tell retail investors about the sustainability of its business? Is the plan to ride the hype? What don’t we even know to ask? My suspicion is that there are many more unknowns here.

In the end, my odd ennui looking at these figures could be chalked up to: I don’t think these numbers tell us anything we didn’t already know to be directionally true. OpenAI is a legendary cash furnace, funneling billions as they chase the dominance that first made them the signature company of the AI boom.

In short, OpenAI is spending wildly to try to win the game it created. The big thing we don’t know? Whether that will be a winning strategy.

SpaceX (officially) is buying Cursor… SpaceX has officially exercised its right to buy Cursor for $60 billion. It will be the largest acquisition of a venture-backed startup ever (assuming we don’t count the frankly strange xAI-SpaceX merger). Check out my story from our last magazine issue about Cursor’s rise, the “Cursor is dead” discourse, and the company’s CEO, Michael Truell.

See you tomorrow,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com

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VENTURE CAPITAL

- Ent, a San Francisco-based workspace security platform for AI-native enterprises, raised $100 million in seed funding. Decibel led the round and was joined by Sequoia, Crosspoint Capital Partners, Craft Ventures, Shield Capital, Felicis, and In-Q-Tel.

- Cellares, a South San Francisco-based integrated development and manufacturing organization (IDMO) for cell therapies, raised an additional $50 million in Series D funding from Prime Radiant Partners.

- Copia Automation, a New York City-based industrial DevOps company, raised $26 million in a Series A extension. AE Ventures and Squadra Ventures led the round and was joined by KAS Venture Partners and existing investors Construct Capital, Lux Capital, Ironspring Ventures, and Renegade Partners.

- Traysar, an Austin, Texas-based defense technology company focused on underground and sub-surface threat detection and protection, raised $25 million in seed funding. Silent Ventures led the round.

- Foundation Alloy, a Cambridge, Mass.-based metals company, raised $22 million in Series A funding. Voyager Ventures led the round and was joined by Trust Ventures. Yamaha Motor Ventures, America's Frontier Fund, Overlap Holdings, and others.

- Aston Power, a Raleigh, N.C.-based power company for data centers, raised $20 million in funding. TDK Ventures and Building Ventures led the round and were joined by JLL Spark Global Ventures and others.

- Limitless Labs, a Tel Aviv, Israel and Oradell, N.J.-based agentic physical AI platform for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Dell Technologies Capital and Square Peg led the round and were joined by Grove Ventures, Meron Capital, and Kinetica.

- Gero, a Singapore and San Francisco-based ‘physics‑first’ AI drug discovery company focused on age‑related diseases and the biology of aging, raised $17 million in funding. Melnichek Investments led the round and was joined by others.

- Rocapine, a Paris, France-based AI-native wellness venture studio, raised $13 million in Series A funding. Educapital led the round and was joined by Daphni, Ring Capital, Centre Court Capital, and others.

- Magnitude, a San Francisco-based developer of an AI ‘workforce’ platform that automates third‑party risk assessments and monitoring for enterprises, raised $10 million in seed funding. Ballistic Ventures led the round.

- eMabler, a Helsinki, Finland-based electric vehicle charging platform, raised €5.5 million ($6.4 million) in Series A funding. Greencode Ventures led the round and was joined by Swiss Post Ventures, Rethink Ventures, and Helkama Kiinteistöt.

- Tenet Security, a New York City-based cybersecurity startup that builds tools to secure autonomous AI agents and agentic workflows against data exfiltration and misuse, raised $6 million in seed funding. The Westly Group and MizMaa Ventures led the round.

PRIVATE EQUITY

- Nuvei, backed by Advent International, agreed to acquire Payoneer, a New York City-based online payments company, for approximately $2.75 billion.

- LongRange Capital agreed to acquire Pizza Hut (excluding Pizza Hut China), a Plano, Texas-based pizza chain, from Yum! Brands for approximately $1.5 billion.

- CVC Catalyst agreed to acquire a majority stake in WillowWood Holdings, a Mt. Sterling, Ohio-based prosthetics company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- xFact, a portfolio company of Renovus Capital Partners, acquired Stonewall Solutions, a Marlborough, Mass.-based technology provider to the government, law enforcement, higher education, and commercial sectors. Financial terms were not disclosed.