OpenAI, Anthropic battle for deals with private equity companies

Summary

• OpenAI and Anthropic are in a high-stakes bidding war to partner with private equity firms for distributing AI tools across portfolio companies.
• OpenAI is offering favorable terms including early access to new models and a guaranteed 17.5% minimum return to PE firms, well above typical preferred returns.
• OpenAI is in advanced talks with TPG, Bain Capital, Brookfield, and Advent for a $10 billion joint venture, with the firms expected to contribute about $4 billion initially.
• Anthropic is running a parallel effort, discussing deals with Blackstone and others, but without the same financial incentives.
• The core strategy is distribution: PE firms control trillions in portfolio company revenue, and embedding AI models creates sticky, recurring revenue that is difficult to replace.
• The joint venture structure allows OpenAI to keep deployment costs—such as engineering and customization—off its books, improving margins ahead of a potential IPO.
• Not all PE firms are convinced; Thoma Bravo passed on the opportunity, despite its extensive portfolio of software companies.
• For PE firms, the value lies in co-owning an entity that absorbs the capital-intensive parts of enterprise AI sales, justifying the guaranteed return.
• This battle underscores the race to monetize AI in enterprise software and the critical role of distribution channels in capturing market share.