The secondaries market offers a window into the most-watched-IPO horse race, perhaps ever, between OpenAI and Anthropic.
Now, the vibe, shall we say, for a while has been that OpenAI is falling behind Anthropic. Across the secondaries market, that’s certainly how prospective buyers seem to feel: demand for Anthropic shares is far exceeding the demand for OpenAI shares, pre-IPO market sources have been telling me. And though there’s a sense Anthropic fever has escalated in recent months (including the demand explosion around the company’s mammoth $65 billion fundraise), Anthropic shares have been the most prized for some time.
“Anthropic has been the most in-demand name in the secondary market for about a year,” Javier Avalos, CEO at private markets platform Caplight, wrote to Fortune, adding that he’s seen about $1.5 billion interest in Anthropic since the beginning of Q2 2026.
The demand for Anthropic shares back in May was described to me as “a pressure cooker ready to explode,” and in the aftermath, the company’s running a tight ship when it comes to who it allows to buy its shares on the secondary market.
“In the secondary space, Anthropic really tightened its process around letting people into its cap table,” said Clara Vydyanath, general partner, Underline Capital. “A lot of cap-table GPs have warehoused positions… and they’re now piecemeal-selling blocks worth $20 million, $50 million, $100 million at a time.”
Currently, Avalos said, Anthropic’s valuation is in the $1.4 trillion ballpark, up more than 400% year-over-year, according to Caplight data. This aligns with what Vydyanath is seeing. And if you don’t have millions to deploy, you’re probably not getting into Anthropic.
“I think below $25 million is difficult,” said Vydyanath. “It’s [generally] got to be $50 million-plus at valuations clearing around $1.3-1.4 trillion.”
And even then, for Anthropic, you might struggle, regardless of how much money you want to throw at the company.
“It’s an incredibly cluttered market,” said Christine Healey, founder of broker firm Healey Pre-IPO. “Even some investors trying to do $10 million or $100 million ticket sizes can struggle to find access… Based on what I’ve seen, Anthropic is a market where demand far outweighs supply, probably by 3x, 4x, 5x demand versus supply.”
To get into OpenAI, on the other hand, you can probably deploy between $500,000 and $1 million, several sources tell me. Caplight’s Avalos added that demand for OpenAI shares has somewhat recovered from earlier-year lows in recent months.
Now, depending on who you are, what you believe, and how much money you have, this could be an opportunity.
“Right now, what I can say is that OpenAI feels underpriced and Anthropic feels overpriced,” said Underline’s Vydyanath. “In reality, OpenAI is a phenomenal deal right now.”
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com