OpenAI and Anthropic Rivals, Yet Investors Back Both
▼ Summary
– OpenAI and Anthropic share about 90 common venture capital and money manager investors, with 42% of OpenAI’s investors also backing Anthropic.
– The high investor overlap is described as unusual or unprecedented by experts, reflecting how sophisticated investors view the AI market as not necessarily winner-take-all.
– Both AI labs aim for stock market debuts this year, and investors with stakes in both may be doubling their odds of success.
– Historically, venture capital firms avoided investing in competing companies to prevent conflicts of interest, but the situation with OpenAI and Anthropic is unlike any previous circumstance.
– The number of common investors may be undercounted because private investment data is challenging to collect, with WIRED identifying at least Amazon as missing from OpenAI’s roster.
OpenAI and Anthropic may be locked in a fierce rivalry for talent, customers, and industry influence, but there is one arena where they share surprising common ground: their investor rosters. According to a WIRED analysis of PitchBook data, approximately 90 venture capital firms and money managers have invested in both AI labs in recent years. OpenAI shares about 42 percent of its total investors with Anthropic, and roughly one-third of Anthropic’s backers also hold stakes in OpenAI. This overlapping investment is far from trivial, including heavyweights like Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Sound Ventures.
Just last week, Anthropic announced a fundraising round naming 31 investors. At least 13 of those also have positions in OpenAI, according to PitchBook data and WIRED reporting. The true number of shared investors may be even higher, as tracking private investments is notoriously difficult. WIRED identified at least a couple of investors missing from OpenAI’s listed roster, including Amazon.
For two companies that have been locked in a high-profile battle since their inception, this level of investor overlap is remarkable. Three experts who study the venture capital industry described the phenomenon as unusual, even unprecedented. It reflects the recent evolution of venture capital, the emergence of two extraordinary AI firms that have raised unheard-of sums of money, and the wide-open nature of the AI competition.
“The ownership structure you are seeing right now is a real insight into how sophisticated investors are viewing this market,” says Tom Nicholas, a Harvard Business School professor and author of VC: An American History. “The answer seems to be that few are convinced this will be a winner-take-all market, or if it is, who the dominant player will be.”
The shared investor base becomes even more significant as both Anthropic and OpenAI aim for their stock market debuts this year. IPOs typically offer investors a chance to cash out, but last year only two-thirds of IPOs saw a meaningful pop in value. By betting on both companies, investors may be doubling their odds of success.
“Rather than looking at these companies as overlapping technologies, what these large investors are doing is protecting their ability to create returns,” says Kyle Stanford, director of venture capital research at PitchBook.
OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment. Several venture capital firms that back both also declined or did not respond to questions about their dual investments. A few agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity to protect industry relationships, each describing the situation as unlike any they had encountered before.
Historically, venture capital firms have concentrated their bets on one company in a competitive space to avoid conflicts of interest, Stanford notes. Companies often share proprietary information with investors or rely on them for advice and governance. Having stakes in rivals invites awkward conversations, but in the case of OpenAI and Anthropic, many investors are willing to take that risk.
(Source: Wired)
