$600 million worth of OpenAI shares are ignored in the secondary market, while Anthropic shares are in hot demand.

OpenAI stock has already fallen out of favor in the secondary market, and in some cases it can be nearly impossible to sell, as investors quickly move to its biggest rival, Anthropic.

Even though OpenAI has been stepping up fundraising in recent months to raise hundreds of billions of dollars, industry insiders say demand for OpenAI on secondary-market platforms is declining:

Next Round Capital founder Ken Smythe said that in recent weeks, about six institutional investors, including hedge funds and venture capital firms holding large stakes, have contacted his company seeking to sell about $600 million in OpenAI stock.

Last year, these shares were typically snapped up within days. But now, no one seems interested.

Smythe said, “We can hardly find anyone willing to take these shares off our hands in a pool of hundreds of institutional investors. My company has matched $2.5 billion worth of deals. Meanwhile, the buyers say they have $2 billion in cash ready to put into Anthropic.”

At the same time, other trading platforms have also observed record demand for Anthropic, including Augment and Hiive:

Augment co-founder Adam Crawley said the huge gap between OpenAI’s $85 billion valuation and Anthropic’s $38 billion valuation has driven investors to scramble for equity in the latter before its valuation rises further. “The current risk-reward is better. People are betting that Anthropic’s valuation will catch up to OpenAI. But if you buy OpenAI stock, the return in the short term is less clear.”

On Tuesday this week, OpenAI announced it had completed the largest fundraising round in its history, raising $12.2 billion from technology giants, venture capital funds, and retail investors. Next Round data shows that the market is currently valuing OpenAI’s bid at about $76.5 billion, a discount of roughly 10% from the prior valuation of $85 billion.

Demand for Anthropic, meanwhile, is clearly higher. Crawley and Next Round both observed that the bid valuation for Anthropic is about $60 billion—more than 50% higher than the previous funding round. In response, Crawley said, “That demand is one of the highest levels we’ve seen—almost unlimited interest.” In addition, demand for Anthropic shares registered on the Hiive platform has exceeded $1.6 billion, and it also comes with a premium.

Separately, media reports citing people familiar with the matter say that Wall Street banks, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have started offering OpenAI stock to wealth clients without charging a carried-interest split (carry). At the same time, Goldman Sachs still charges standard carry fees for clients interested in investing in Anthropic, typically about 15% to 20% of profits.

Without company authorization, neither Anthropic nor OpenAI allows investors to trade their shares on the secondary market. However, investors can still gain exposure to the relevant shares on multiple platforms through vehicles such as special purpose vehicles (SPVs).

In a statement on its website, OpenAI wrote: “OpenAI does not recognize and does not participate in these transactions. These actions violate our transfer restrictions and may cause the related equity to become invalid.”

Primary-market fundraising and secondary-market trading do not always follow the same logic. In funding rounds, existing investors are typically offered the opportunity to buy additional shares to maintain their ownership proportion; and to avoid a direct refusal (which could upset the founders), they can choose to subscribe and then sell part of their exposure through the secondary market.

In recent years, both OpenAI and Anthropic—two AI companies—have grown rapidly, especially after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 and Anthropic subsequently launched Claude. Both companies are also considering plans to go public, and OpenAI is expected to do so as early as this year.

Some investors have become more cautious about OpenAI’s rising operating costs. The company has committed to investing far more than Anthropic in infrastructure spending over the coming years to support its AI strategy. Although OpenAI has a strong consumer base, it has been slower to gain higher-profit enterprise customers. By contrast, Anthropic has already established dominance in this higher-profit market, so its growth trajectory looks stronger.

However, Anthropic also faces its own challenges. The company is suing the U.S. Department of Defense. The Pentagon previously listed it as a supply-chain risk and ordered government agencies to stop using its technology. In addition, just this week, Anthropic experienced its second security incident within a few days, accidentally leaking Claude’s internal source code.

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