OpenAI’s reported revenue gap puts its funding story under pressure

The gap and the spending

TechCrunch requested comment from OpenAI.

The company raised $122 billion in a funding round in March. Financial data leaked earlier this year showed that OpenAI brought in about $13 billion in 2025, while spending significantly more. The reported $20 billion shortfall is measured against earlier estimates; the report does not specify the period or the estimates behind it.

OpenAI’s potential public offering, rumored to be possible this year, has been delayed until early 2027. That gives the company more time before a listing, but also leaves a longer stretch in which its revenue needs to catch up with the scale of its funding and spending.

I think the more important omission is what the $20 billion figure actually compares. Without a timeframe or a breakdown of the earlier estimates, the headline gap is hard to judge: it could signal a worsening revenue trajectory, or a forecast that was simply too ambitious. Either way, the distance between about $13 billion in 2025 revenue and $122 billion raised in March makes the question of sustainable growth harder to sidestep.