As competition in the increasingly crowded generative AI space has intensified, it appears that has turned to M&A to boost its offerings and stay ahead of its rivals.
OpenAI has already made six acquisitions in 2026, nearly as many as it made in all of 2025, according to 蹤獲弝け . Its latest purchase took place on March 19, when it announced plans to , a creator of open-source tools for software developers. This month, it also snapped up , an open-source tool for testing AI applications.
Overall, the San Francisco-based company has acquired 17 companies in the past three years, 蹤獲弝け data shows. Eight of those purchases were made in 2025, although it didnt even start making acquisitions until April last year.
By contrast, OpenAI only acquired two companies in 2024: and , and one company in 2023: .
The company seems to be continuing its acquisitive streak this year. It announced three acquisitions in January alone, setting the tone for what appears likely to be a busy M&A year. In January, it acquired:
- , a consulting firm providing custom AI solutions and specializing in GenAI, predictive analytics and strategy.
- , an AI-powered health app that aims to unify scattered medical records from hospitals, labs, wearables and consumers.
- , which provides LaTeX editing, error detection and team collaboration.
In February, OpenAI participated in an deal involving open-source AI agent and its creator, .
Historically, OpenAI hasnt disclosed the purchase price for most of its acquisitions. The most expensive deal at least among transactions for which a sales price was revealed was its May 2025 acquisition of . OpenAI paid $6.5 billion for the then 1-year-old startup, which developed AI-powered devices.
However, not all of OpenAIs proposed acquisitions have worked out. Last July, news broke that its planned $3 billion purchase of Windsurf had fallen apart.
Cash considerations
Certainly, OpenAI has deep pockets with which to buy companies despite reportedly being wildly unprofitable. In late February, the company announced it had closed a staggering $110 billion fundraising round at an $840 billion post-money valuation. The financing marked the largest startup funding deal ever, according to . OpenAIs investors involve a diverse bunch, including , , , ,, and .
Still, despite all that funding, according to a report from , projects that OpenAIs cumulative free cash flow by 2030 will still be in the red, leaving a $207 billion funding shortfall that must be filled through additional debt, equity, or more aggressive revenue generation.
Startup M&A overall
OpenAIs biggest rival, , has been far less acquisitive. So far this year, it has made only one known purchase, buying , a 2-year-old software development startup. In 2025, Anthropic made two known acquisitions: , an LLM evaluation platform for enterprises, and , a JavaScript runtime for developing and managing web applications.
Overall startup M&A dealmaking has been fairly robust so far this year, 蹤獲弝け data shows. This includes two deals in the multiple billions: s $5.15 billion purchase of and s $2.4 billion acquisition of . The AI sectors appetite for acqui-hires and smaller purchases of earlier-stage startups also continues to boost momentum.
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Related reading:
- The Most Active Startup Acquirers Of The Past 3 Years Arent Always Who Youd Expect
- Small And Mid-Sized Startup Purchases Are Still Well Below The 2021 Peak
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