OpenAl offering private-equity firms a guaranteed return of 17.5%
1 point · 0 comments
TOKYO, JAPAN - FEBRUARY 3: Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a talk session with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event titled "Transforming Business through AI" in Tokyo, Japan, on February 03, 2025. SoftBank and OpenAI announced that they have agreed a partnership to set up a joint venture for artificial intelligence services in Japan today. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
OpenAI is offering private-equity firms a guaranteed minimum return of 17.5%, significantly above what is typical for preferred equity instruments, as it races to secure distribution partners for a new enterprise joint venture, according to a Reuters report published today. The company is also promising early access to models not yet in public release, with firms including TPG and Advent International named as targets for the deal.
The joint venture, first reported by Reuters on March 16 , carries a pre-money valuation of roughly $10 billion. Private equity investors would collectively commit approximately $4 billion in exchange for equity stakes and board seats. TPG is set to serve as anchor investor, with Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management as co-founding participants.
Rival Anthropic is pursuing a structurally similar arrangement, courting Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Permira for its own enterprise-focused venture. But Anthropic's offer includes no equivalent financial guarantee, the sources said, a gap that defines the competitive terms of what has become a direct contest for private equity capital and enterprise market share.
The strategy is new to the AI sector. Both companies are courting buyout firms because PE firms control large portfolios of established companies and directly influence how those businesses budget for software and technology. A joint venture structure gives OpenAI and Anthropic a shortcut into hundreds of corporate customers simultaneously, bypassing deal-by-deal enterprise sales cycles.
"There's a big race to lock in as much enterprise, as many desks as possible," said Matt Kropp of Boston Consulting Group's AI unit , adding that once a company has a customized AI model integrated into a client's systems, switching to a competitor becomes substantially harder.