No Buyers for $600 Million OpenAI Shares as $2 Billion Cash Buyers Queue for Anthropic

According to 1M AI News, OpenAI recently completed a $12.2 billion financing round at a valuation of $852 billion, but the secondary market tells a different story. Ken Smythe, founder of secondary trading firm Next Round Capital, stated that in recent weeks, about six institutional investors (including hedge funds and venture capital) approached him wanting to sell a total of approximately $600 million in OpenAI shares, which would have been snapped up within days last year, but now there is no interest. “We can’t find any of the hundreds of institutional investors willing to take it on,” he said, noting that his company has facilitated $2.5 billion in transactions. Meanwhile, “buyers have indicated they are ready to invest $2 billion in Anthropic.” Secondary platforms Augment and Hiive have also recorded record demand for Anthropic. Adam Crawley, co-founder of Augment, stated that the valuation gap between OpenAI at $852 billion and Anthropic at $380 billion is driving investors to rush for the latter: “Now is a better risk-return. People are betting that Anthropic’s valuation will catch up to OpenAI, but the near-term returns for buying OpenAI are less clear.” Both Next Round and Augment’s offers have pushed Anthropic’s valuation to about $600 billion, a premium of over 50% compared to the last funding round; Hiive co-founder Prab Rattan noted that demand for Anthropic on the platform has exceeded $1.6 billion, also at a premium. Crawley described this demand as “essentially unlimited.” For OpenAI, the buy offers recorded by Next Round correspond to a valuation of about $765 billion, a discount of about 10% from the previous $850 billion. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have begun distributing OpenAI shares to wealth clients without charging carry fees, while Goldman continues to charge the usual 15%-20% profit share for Anthropic. The logic of primary market financing and secondary market trading differs: in primary financing, existing shareholders are often invited to co-invest to maintain their ownership percentage; rather than refuse (which founders may not want to see), it is better to buy in first and then reduce exposure in the secondary market. Some investors are cautious about OpenAI’s high operational costs. The company’s commitments to infrastructure spending in the coming years far exceed those of Anthropic, and consumer revenue accounts for about 60%, with slow expansion in enterprise clients; Anthropic, on the other hand, has captured the higher-margin enterprise market, and Crawley believes its growth curve is therefore stronger. Both companies do not allow investors to trade shares in the secondary market without permission, but through mechanisms like special purpose vehicles (SPVs), these shares are still available on multiple platforms. An OpenAI spokesperson responded that the company “has recently established authorized channels through banks for individuals to participate, with zero fees, to combat the high-fee broker model,” and reminded investors to “be highly vigilant against any companies claiming to hold OpenAI equity (including through SPVs).”