On Forge Global, a private share marketplace, Anthropic's implied valuation has climbed to roughly $1 trillion — putting it ahead of OpenAI, which trades at $880 billion on the same platform — according to Forge Global CEO Kelly Rodriques.
For context, OpenAI's last primary raise pegged it at $852 billion, and Anthropic's own most recent primary round — a GIC- and Coatue-led deal that closed roughly three months ago — set its valuation at $380 billion, less than half what the secondary market now implies.
A shortage of available shares has given buyers little leverage, with intense competition among would-be investors pushing secondary prices steadily upward. Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, described seeing a bid for Anthropic shares priced at a $960 billion valuation — one that, he told Business Insider, disappeared to another buyer before he could even assess it. Ken Sawyer, cofounder and managing partner at Saints Capital, said one shareholder had offered to sell at a $1.15 trillion valuation. A "very well known growth fund" offered to buy at $1.05 trillion, according to Business Insider.
Current Anthropic shareholders report being inundated with unsolicited approaches but show little inclination to part with their stakes. "We receive daily offers from the ridiculous to the sublime," Bradley Horowitz, a general partner at Wisdom Ventures — an early investor in both Anthropic and OpenAI — told Business Insider. "We are playing a long game."
Anderson told Business Insider that the frenzy is rooted more in anxiety about being left out than in any careful assessment of the company's worth. "It's almost less about the return than being able to say they're an Anthropic investor," he told Business Insider. OpenAI's position in the secondary market looks markedly different: Anderson said interest there has been thin, with buyers unwilling to match even the price set during the company's last fundraise.
Anthropic's rapid revenue growth has been a key driver of investor interest. Revenue figures reported by Business Insider show the company's annualized run rate surging from $9 billion late last year to $30 billion by March 2026, a jump that analysts have tied largely to breakout adoption of its Claude Code tool among developers.
Because neither company has gone public, shares can generally only change hands through private secondary transactions — typically stock offloaded by employees, alumni, or seed-stage investors.
The secondary market valuation comes as Anthropic has drawn growing attention for its rapid growth and a public dispute with the Defense Department after it refused to allow its AI models to be used for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance. The company has also unveiled a cybersecurity initiative, Project Glasswing, built around a new unreleased model called Claude Mythos, with partners including Microsoft $MSFT, Google $GOOGL, and AWS.
Neither Anthropic nor OpenAI responded to requests for comment, according to Business Insider.