Institutional investors are struggling to unload hundreds of millions of dollars worth of OpenAI shares in the secondary market.
Ken Smythe, founder of the private-market liquidity provider Next Round Capital, says six institutional investors have approached his firm recently to unload $600 million in OpenAI shares in the secondary market, Bloomberg reports.
Smythe says no one is interested in gobbling up shares of the AI titan, as institutions are reserving capital for rival Anthropic.
“We literally couldn’t find anyone in our pool of hundreds of institutional investors to take these shares. Buyers have indicated they have $2 billion of cash ready to deploy into Anthropic.”
Adam Crawley, the co-founder of the secondary marketplace for private stock Augment, echoes Smythe’s view that institutions see Anthropic offering better value for their money.
“It’s just better risk-reward right now. People are betting that Anthropic’s valuation will catch up with OpenAI’s. But if you buy OpenAI shares, it’s less clear what the return will be in the near term.”
On Tuesday, OpenAI announced that it has officially closed a $122 billion funding round, pushing the company to an $852 billion valuation. Meanwhile, Anthropic is valued at $380 billion, following its latest $30 billion funding round.
Crawley adds that investors are concerned about OpenAI’s operating costs and commitment to spend $1.4 trillion in the coming years to support its AI aspirations.
News of institutions struggling to find takers of OpenAI shares in the secondary market caught the attention of Elon Musk on X. He says the development is “not surprising.”
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