Anthropic surpasses biggest rival OpenAI in secondary market valuation — surges to $1 trillion amid frantic investor interest

According to a Business Insider report today, Anthropic — the company behind Claude AI — has surged to a one-trillion-dollar valuation on private secondary trading market Forge Global, surpassing competitor OpenAI’s $880 billion valuation in the same markets. The surge highlights a steep uptick in investor demand for exposure to artificial intelligence, but what do these figures really mean, and what exactly is driving this spike?

Because neither Anthropic nor OpenAI is publicly listed, most investors cannot access shares through traditional stock exchanges. Instead, trades occur on secondary marketplaces, where early employees or investors can sell portions of their holdings.

These markets behave very differently from public equities: Supply is limited, as few insiders are willing to sell; pricing is based on individual deals, making transactions opaque; and valuations are controlled by a small handful of very powerful investors.

Anthropic's actual valuation is anchored in its latest round of funding in February 2026, in which the company received a consensus $380 billion post-money valuation following due diligence and structured negotiations with institutional investors.

However, the $1 trillion secondary market valuation reflects what people without access are willing to pay for a slice of Anthropic. Business Insider reports that, according to Ken Sawyer, cofounder and managing partner at Saints Capital, a venture secondary firm, an Anthropic shareholder recently offered to unload shares at a $1.15 trillion valuation.

As unbelievable as that sounds, it appears people are willing to pay. In an X post this week, Jesse Leimgruber, founder of OpenHome, claimed that a "very well-known growth fund" offered to buy Anthropic shares at a $1.05 trillion valuation.

It gets crazier. In a LinkedIn post, one investor offered their 14-acre estate in exchange for Anthropic shares at a valuation of over $800 billion, more than twice the actual value.

"It's been an epic run for Anthropic," Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, told Business Insider. "Everybody wants to be part of a generational opportunity in AI, and right now, Anthropic is in the pole position."

The company said it had fielded numerous offers from VCs, with one offer coming in at a $960 billion valuation, a price Anderson said would have been unthinkable even a few weeks ago. Still, he expects it to be snapped up by someone else.

Those who currently own Anthropic shares also report being inundated with numerous offers.

"We receive daily offers from the ridiculous to the sublime," Bradley Horowitz, a general partner at an early investor in both Anthropic and OpenAI, told Business Insider. "I barely open those emails because we're not interested. We are playing a long game."

Interestingly, this surge may be more about Anthropic than about AI fever in general, as secondary market sentiment appears to have shifted away from OpenAI, despite its larger scale and an estimated valuation of around $850 billion from recent funding rounds. Traders report comparatively muted demand for OpenAI shares, with some bids coming in below its last primary valuation.

Perhaps the contrast in demand stems from the difference in the companies' actual valuation - OpenAI's secondary valuation of $880 billion is just $30 billion less than the actual $850 billion valuation. Meanwhile, Anthropic has a $1 trillion secondary market valuation compared to a $380 billion actual valuation, possibly signaling more room for growth and driving speculative trading.

Perhaps it stems from Anthropic's rapid growth, particularly around its Claude AI products, which have positioned the company as a leading contender in the generative AI race.

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