OpenAI said to near up to $30B round at $1.25T pre-money valuation, led by UAE investors, Coatue

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Friday 23 October 2026
Top stories today:
- OpenAI nears up to $30B round at $1.25T pre-money valuation
- a16z Crypto rebrands, expands focus to AI, robotics
- Canva launches Craft, its first image generation model
- Warp Sciences, ex-OpenAI CPO’s startup, emerges with $215M
- Upwind received ~$4B Datadog offer, instead finalizing $300M round
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1. OpenAI said to near up to $30B round at $1.25T pre-money valuation, led by UAE investors, Coatue
- The round would serve as an “opportunistic” bridge ahead of an IPO.
- After facing investor resistance, OpenAI reportedly cut its valuation target.
- Morgan Stanley and Dragoneer had pitched the earlier $1.4T pre-money valuation to the bank’s private wealth clients.
- Investors have until Oct. 30 to commit to the deal.
- OpenAI would get the right of first refusal on new computing capacity developed by its UAE partners.
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3. a16z Crypto rebrands as a16z Frontier, expands focus to AI, robotics, emerging tech
- a16z Crypto GP Ali Yahya reportedly plans to leave to launch a startup.
- a16z Crypto has raised $9.8B across 5 funds to date.
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5. Canva launches Craft, its first image generation model trained on human-designed templates
Craft ranks just behind OpenAI’s models on DesignArena:
- It supports 2K images at any aspect ratio with precise control.
- Available via Canva’s app and public API, with MCP server support coming soon.
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7. Warp Sciences, ex-OpenAI CPO’s AI drug startup, emerges with $215M at $865M valuation
- Former OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil founded Warp Sciences to accelerate drug development.
- Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with IVP, Premji Invest, and Lux Capital also participating.

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