Investors lost interest in OpenAI shares on the secondary market. They were attracted by a competitor

Shares of one of the leaders in the field of artificial intelligence, OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, are losing their attractiveness on the secondary market, Bloomberg found out. In some cases, they have become almost impossible to sell, as investors have rapidly shifted their attention to the securities of the company's main competitor - Anthropic, the agency writes. Both companies are non-public, but are preparing for IPO, which may take place already this year.

Next Round Capital, a platform that has become an intermediary in trading OTC assets, including shares of private companies, has recorded a drop in demand for securities of AI giant OpenAI, Ken Smith, founder of the service, told Bloomberg. In recent weeks, about six institutional investors, including hedge funds and venture capital funds with large stakes, have approached Next Round with the intention of selling OpenAI shares for about $600 million. A year ago, such packages would have been bought out in a matter of days, but now there is virtually no demand, Bloomberg writes.

"We literally couldn't find a single buyer among the hundreds of institutional investors in our database," Smith said. At the same time, he said, "buyers have indicated that they have $2 billion in cash ready" to invest in the securities of OpenAI's competitor Anthropic, which created the Claude AI.

Other platforms, including Augment and Hiive, are also recording record demand for Anthropic securities, Bloomberg writes. The significant gap between OpenAI's valuation of $852 billion and Anthropic' s $380 billion is pushing investors to more actively buy securities of the second company before it rises in price, said Augment co-founder Adam Crowley.

"It's just a more attractive risk-return ratio right now," Crowley told Bloomberg. - Investors are betting that Anthropic's valuation will catch up with OpenAI. But if you buy OpenAI stock, it's less clear what the returns will be in the short term."

Banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have also started offering OpenAI shares to wealthy clients without charging a commission, according to Bloomberg's source. Goldman, meanwhile, charges a standard fee to clients interested in Anthropic - typically around 15-20% of profits.

OpenAI and Anthropic did not comment on the Bloomberg publication. Representatives of the banks declined to comment to the agency.

Primary funding rounds and secondary market deals don't always follow the same logic, Bloomberg explains. In funding rounds like the one OpenAI announced on March 31, existing investors are often asked to buy shares to avoid dilution. Instead of refusing - which the founders may not like - investors agree to participate and then partially sell the resulting stake on the secondary market, the agency explains.

Anthropic and OpenAI do not allow investors to freely trade shares on the secondary market, for such transactions the companies must give permission. Nevertheless, access to the securities is maintained on various platforms: investors sell shares through alternative mechanisms, including SPVs, where the shares are owned by a special company, a stake in which is offered to investors.

"OpenAI does not support or participate in such transactions, which violate our restrictions on share transfers and could result in the respective interests being invalidated," the company said in a statement issued April 1.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor