OpenAI is in advanced discussions to form a joint venture with a consortium of private equity firms – TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital, and Brookfield Asset Management – to accelerate the distribution of its artificial intelligence products to enterprise clients, according to four individuals with knowledge of the negotiations.
The proposed venture carries a pre-money valuation of approximately $10 billion, two sources said. The deal would provide OpenAI with a more direct channel to corporate adoption, although offering the private equity firms a means to mitigate the risks posed by AI disruption to companies within their portfolios. The arrangement reflects a growing trend of AI developers seeking partnerships with firms that control significant enterprise holdings and influence corporate technology budgets, three sources added.
TPG is expected to be the lead investor, committing the largest share of capital, with Advent, Bain, and Brookfield participating as co-founding investors. All four firms are anticipated to secure board seats within the recent venture, though the details remain subject to change and a final agreement has not been reached, sources cautioned.
The private equity investors are collectively expected to commit around $4 billion in exchange for equity stakes in the joint venture, gaining influence over the deployment of OpenAI’s technology across their respective portfolio companies. The arrangement would also grant them early access to OpenAI’s enterprise tools and potential benefits as adoption expands beyond their existing investments, two sources familiar with the talks stated.
This move comes as both OpenAI and Anthropic actively court private equity investment, recognizing their control over enterprise companies and their impact on business software and AI spending. The competition between the two AI companies to secure these partnerships is intensifying as both consider potential public offerings this year, three sources said.
Anthropic is also engaged in discussions with private equity firms, including Blackstone, Permira, and Hellman & Friedman, to establish a similar joint venture focused on distributing its Claude AI technology to companies backed by those firms, according to one source. That potential deal envisions the private equity firms taking an equity stake of approximately $1 billion, though the specifics are still under negotiation.
OpenAI is offering “preferred equity” in its venture – a class of ownership that prioritizes returns for investors and limits potential losses – while Anthropic is offering common equity, which lacks those protections, three sources said.
The potential deals arrive at a pivotal moment for private equity, as the rapid advancement of AI is reshaping investment strategies. The technology has introduced volatility into software valuations, complicating deal underwriting, and raising concerns about the long-term viability of business models susceptible to automation.
Currently, Anthropic is perceived as having an edge in the enterprise AI market, with stronger adoption among corporate clients. As of the end of February, OpenAI’s enterprise business generated $10 billion in annualized revenue, contributing to a total annualized revenue of $25 billion, one source said.
The joint venture could also facilitate the wider distribution of OpenAI’s enterprise offering, Frontier, launched last month. Frontier is the foundation of OpenAI’s Frontier Alliances program, which pairs the company’s engineers with consulting firms like BCG, McKinsey, Accenture, and Capgemini to integrate AI agents into core business processes, as Reuters reported last month.
“As demand for AI continues to skyrocket, we want to help our customers deploy these technologies in all the ways that help them create impact,” Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI, said in a statement to Reuters. “That’s why we recently announced Frontier Alliances to leverage our ecosystem of partners, and that’s why we’re also building a deployment arm that works directly with enterprises and partners to deeply embed AI throughout their organizations. We’ll have more to share when details are finalized.”
OpenAI declined to comment on the joint venture plans. Advent, TPG, and Brookfield declined to comment. Bain did not respond to requests for comment. Anthropic did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Permira also declined to comment.
