OpenAI Kills Sora, Raises $10B at $730B Valuation
OpenAI shuts down its viral video app while closing a $10B add-on to its $110B round, pushing valuation near $850B.
Sora is dead. The standalone app, sora.com, and the API are all being discontinued — less than 6 months after topping App Store charts. Downloads had already cratered 45% by January, compute costs were brutal, and a rumored $1B Disney licensing deal evaporated before a dollar changed hands.
The shutdown isn't distress — it's pruning. On the same day, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar confirmed a $10B add-on tranche to the $110B round closed in February (led by Amazon $50B, Nvidia $30B, SoftBank $30B). New investors include MGX, Coatue, Thrive Capital, Altimeter, and Microsoft rejoining. Post-money valuation: ~$850B. Total 2026 fundraising: $120B+.
The strategic signal is loud: kill expensive consumer bets, concentrate GPU capacity on coding and reasoning products, and consolidate the app surface. A desktop superapp merging ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser is already in development under Fidji Simo.
Why it matters: OpenAI is optimizing for margin before IPO — video generation burned cash, agentic coding prints it.
Sources
- OpenAI Discontinues Sora App bloomberg.com
- OpenAI Set to Raise $10B from MGX, Coatue, Thrive bloomberg.com
- OpenAI desktop super app: ChatGPT + Codex + Atlas cnbc.com
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