Anthropic Passes OpenAI on Private Market Signals as $2B Chases Its Shares

Anthropic Passes OpenAI on Private Market Signals as $2B Chases Its Shares

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• Anthropic’s implied private market valuation has edged past OpenAI’s for the first time, with secondary market data showing figures of approximately $863.6 billion against OpenAI’s $846.1 billion, according to data circulating across trading platforms and reported by Bloomberg.
• The inversion is driven by speculative futures contracts and secondary share trading not a new funding round meaning neither figure is an officially confirmed valuation.
• OpenAI’s last formal funding round, closed in late March 2026, placed its post-money valuation at $852 billion; Anthropic’s Series G in February 2026 valued it at $380 billion.
• About $600 million in OpenAI shares brought to secondary markets by institutional investors found zero buyers, while more than $2 billion in capital is reportedly queued to buy Anthropic shares with almost no sellers willing to part with them.
• Anthropic’s annualised revenue crossed $30 billion in early April 2026, surpassing OpenAI’s confirmed $24 billion run rate a reversal that analysts say is the primary force reshaping investor sentiment.

The AI valuation race has flipped at least in the secondary market. Private market trading platforms are now pricing Anthropic above OpenAI for the first time, while $600 million in OpenAI shares sits unsold and investors queue with billions to buy into Claude’s maker.

Anthropic has crossed a threshold that would have seemed implausible eighteen months ago. Secondary market data figures reported by Bloomberg and circulating across private trading platforms show Anthropic’s implied valuation at approximately $863.6 billion, narrowly ahead of OpenAI’s $846.1 billion. The numbers do not come from a funding round. They emerge from speculative private market instruments and share-trading activity, which means they reflect investor sentiment and forward expectations rather than formally negotiated terms. What they reveal, however, is a structural shift in how sophisticated capital is positioning itself at the top of the AI industry.

The clearest signal came from secondary market broker Next Round Capital, whose founder Ken Smythe told Bloomberg that roughly half a dozen institutional holders hedge funds and venture capital firms approached his platform seeking to offload approximately $600 million worth of OpenAI shares. After contacting hundreds of institutional buyers, his marketplace found essentially no takers. The contrast on the Anthropic side was stark. Anthropic was drawing roughly $2 billion in indicated buy-side demand, with bids implying a valuation in the $600 billion range the same category of investors, the same asset class, moving in opposite directions. At Rainmaker Securities, a firm that facilitates transactions in roughly 1,000 private stocks, president Glen Anderson described Anthropic as “the hardest stock to source in our marketplace” due to a near-total absence of sellers.

The pricing divergence between the two companies is also visible in how Wall Street is handling distribution. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have begun offering OpenAI shares to high-net-worth clients without charging carry fees the 15 to 20 percent profit share they typically collect while Goldman continues to charge its standard carry for clients seeking Anthropic exposure. In private markets, when intermediaries waive their margin to move a product, it is a reliable signal about where real demand sits. Secondary market trading for OpenAI shares implies a valuation of around $765 billion, a discount of roughly ten percent to its latest primary-round figure of $852 billion, while Anthropic’s secondary bids sit more than fifty percent above its last funding round valuation of $380 billion.

The fundamental force driving this rerating is revenue. Anthropic’s revenue hit a $30 billion annualised run rate in early April 2026, up from $9 billion at the close of 2025 and $14 billion when it raised its Series G in February a threefold increase in roughly three months. OpenAI confirmed $2 billion in monthly revenue alongside its March funding round, equating to a $24 billion annualised figure. Analysts note the two companies report revenue differently Anthropic accounts for cloud reseller revenue on a gross basis while OpenAI reports on a net basis meaning the gap may be narrower in strictly comparable terms. What is not in dispute is the growth trajectory. Anthropic went from capturing roughly ten percent of combined OpenAI-Anthropic business subscription spend in early 2025 to over 65 percent by February 2026, according to Ramp Index data tracking spend across more than 50,000 US businesses.Enterprise adoption is the engine: Anthropic now counts more than 1,000 customers spending over one million dollars annually on Claude a number that doubled in under two months. The cost structure also diverges sharply. OpenAI is projected to spend $125 billion per year on training by 2030; Anthropic’s projection for the same period stands at around $30 billion, with the company targeting positive free cash flow by 2027 while OpenAI has pushed its break-even target to 2030.

It is important for readers to understand what the headline valuation figures do and do not represent. Private market instruments whether perpetual futures contracts on platforms such as Ventuals or secondary share transactions on platforms such as Augment and Hiive are shaped by trader positioning, leverage, and sentiment as much as by underlying business fundamentals. Anthropic’s officially confirmed last-round valuation of $380 billion remains less than half of OpenAI’s formally negotiated $852 billion. The secondary market crossover is a forward signal, not a confirmed fact. What it does tell investors and observers is that the market’s working thesis on which company is gaining ground and which is giving it up has shifted in a decisive and measurable way

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