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Feb 19, 2026

OpenAI said close to 1st phase of $100B+ round, post-money valuation could top $850B

Bay Area Times
Bay Area Times
OpenAI said close to 1st phase of $100B+ round, post-money valuation could top $850B

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Top stories today:

  1. OpenAI closing 1st phase of $100B+ round, valuation could top $850B
  2. World Labs, Fei-Fei Li’s AI startup, raises $1B to build world models
  3. Google rolls out Lyria 3 music model in Gemini beta across 8 languages
  4. Humain invests $3B in xAI, becomes β€œsignificant minority shareholder”
  5. Moderna flu shot review revived after FDA reversal
  6. Meta said to revive Malibu 2 smartwatch for 2026 launch

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0. Data and calendar

All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).

All times are ET.

Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):

1. OpenAI said close to 1st phase of $100B+ round, post-money valuation could top $850B

  • Amazon ($50B), SoftBank ($30B), NVIDIA($20B), and Microsoft ($B’s) are reportedly participating in the 1st portion.

    • Feb.-end: the companies are expected to finalize their allocations.

  • VC firms, sovereign wealth funds, and others are expected to participate in the next phase.

  • +4% in SoftBank shares on the news Thu. morning.

2. World Labs, Fei-Fei Li’s AI startup, raises $1B to build world models for robotics, science

  • Autodesk invested $200M in the round.a16z, Nvidia and AMD also participated.

  • a16z, NVIDIA, and AMD also participated.

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4. Google rolls out Lyria 3 music model in Gemini beta across 8 languages

Google.

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