"Unique proposition: OpenAI or Anthropic - which is better for the investor?

Chatbot market leaders OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing for a multi-billion dollar IPO later this year. On the eve of their IPO, Seeking Alpha analysts advised investors to take an extremely balanced approach to evaluating their business models.

Seeking Alpha analyst Chris Demuth Jr. positively assessed the prospects of both startups, but noted that in a direct comparison, Anthropic's business valuation seems to him "somewhat more reasonable". According to him, both developers are now "favored by investors," but at the current stage their securities have already become "quite expensive," although at the venture stage there were good opportunities to build up positions.

Another Seeking Alpha analyst, Jonathan Weber, finds Anthropic "more attractive right now," even though OpenAI has historically outperformed it in terms of business scale and customer base. The analyst stressed that Anthropic's specialization in software code provides it with a "unique selling proposition," while its strong financial backing from Alphabet and Amazon removes the risk of a capital shortfall.

Analyst Julia Ostian, in turn, advises not to rush to buy shares at the IPO of OpenAI and Anthropic: according to her, the startups are valued too high. Thus, the current value of OpenAI exceeds its annual revenue by more than 35 times, which the expert called "an insane level for a deeply unprofitable company." "I see Anthropic as a much more interesting bet, but I can't say that at the moment any of these companies is a really good investment," she said.

OpenAI is not expected to break even until the 2030s, while Anthropic expects to reach that milestone sooner. However, a direct comparison of the financials of these startups would be incorrect: Anthropic counts sales of its technology through cloud partners as revenue, while OpenAI does not, The Wall Street Journal points out.

There is a quality inversion in the private market: the highest-rated startups have the worst business metrics, while OpenAI looks the weakest, Morningstar wrote in late March. With a base of 800-900 million users and annual subscription revenue (ARR) of $20 billion, about 85% of the developer's ChatGPT audience is not generating revenue. The lack of public data on corporate customer retention calls into question OpenAI's current $840 billion valuation, the analyst firm said.

Capital efficiency highlights the contrast: OpenAI generates $0.11 ARR per dollar of investment, while Anthropic generates $0.23. That said, for Anthropic, the critical valuation marker will be achieving a gross margin of 40% in 2026. If this milestone is not achieved, the question of the fairness of the company's valuation will come up again, Morningstar stated.

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