Six months ago, OpenAI was the name everyone wanted on private secondary markets. Now it's Anthropic.
Glen Anderson, president of Rainmaker Securities, told TechCrunch that the secondary market for private company shares (where employees and early investors sell stakes before an IPO) has never been more active. And Anthropic is the single hottest trade.
The shift makes sense if you've been paying attention. Anthropic's Claude models have been gaining ground steadily, particularly with enterprise customers and developers. The company raised $2 billion from Google and another $2 billion from Amazon in recent rounds, pushing its valuation north of $60 billion. Meanwhile, OpenAI has dealt with leadership drama, a messy for-profit conversion, and growing questions about whether its spending pace is sustainable.
Private secondary markets are a useful signal because they reflect where sophisticated investors are actually putting money, not just where the hype is. When demand for Anthropic shares outpaces OpenAI on these markets, it tells you something about where the smart money thinks the AI race is heading.
The SpaceX Factor
Here's the wrinkle: SpaceX is reportedly moving toward an IPO, and that could pull significant capital away from AI companies on secondary markets. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and when it opens up to public investors, the pool of money chasing other private shares gets smaller.
For Anthropic, the timing matters. The company hasn't announced IPO plans of its own, so anyone wanting exposure to its growth has to buy through these secondary markets. If SpaceX absorbs a chunk of that capital, Anthropic shares could see less demand and potentially lower premiums.
None of this changes the underlying product competition. Claude is shipping strong models, building real enterprise traction, and competing effectively against GPT-4o and Gemini. But in the financial layer underneath the technology, the dynamics are about to get more complicated. Anthropic's window as the undisputed darling of private AI investing may be shorter than its backers would like.