600 million USD worth of OpenAI shares go unnoticed in the secondary market, while Anthropic shares are snapped up rapidly

OpenAI’s stock has fallen out of favor in the secondary market, and in some cases is almost impossible to sell, as investors quickly shift their attention to its biggest competitor, Anthropic.

Despite OpenAI’s efforts over the past few months to raise hundreds of billions of dollars, industry insiders say demand for OpenAI on secondary-market platforms is declining:

Next Round Capital’s 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 firm, seeking to sell about $600 million worth of OpenAI stock.

Last year, these stocks would usually be snapped up within days. But now, no one is interested.

Smythe said, “In a pool of hundreds of institutional investors, we can hardly find anyone willing to take on these stocks. My company has facilitated transactions totaling $2.5 billion. Meanwhile, buyers say they have $2 billion in cash and are prepared to put it into Anthropic.”

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

Augment co-founder Adam Crawley said that the huge gap between OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation and Anthropic’s $380 billion valuation has prompted investors to race to buy 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 with OpenAI. But if you buy OpenAI’s stock, the short-term returns are less clear.”

On Tuesday this week, OpenAI announced that it had completed what it described as its largest-ever funding round, raising $122 billion from tech giants, venture capital funds, and retail investors. Next Round data shows that the market’s bid-valuation for OpenAI is currently about $765 billion, roughly 10% below the previous $850 billion valuation.

Market demand for Anthropic, however, is clearly higher. Both Crawley and Next Round noted that bids value Anthropic at around $600 billion—more than 50% higher than the previous round. In response, Crawley said, “That kind of demand is one of the highest levels we’ve seen—almost unlimited interest.” In addition, demand for Anthropic stock recorded on the Hiive platform has exceeded $1.6 billion and carries a premium as well.

Separately, media reports citing insiders say that Wall Street banks, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have started offering OpenAI stock to wealth clients without charging carry. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs still charges standard carry fees—typically about 15% to 20% of profits—for clients interested in investing in Anthropic.

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

On its official website, OpenAI wrote: “OpenAI does not endorse or participate in these transactions. Such conduct violates our transfer restrictions and may cause the relevant equity to become invalid.”

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

In recent years, both OpenAI and Anthropic have seen rapid growth—especially after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, and after Anthropic subsequently introduced Claude. Both companies are also considering plans to go public, and OpenAI is expected to potentially list as early as this year.

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

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