For the creators and artists building the next generation of creative tools, the rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic is playing out on a stage where their biggest backers are sitting in the same seats. While these two labs have sparred for talent, clients, and political influence, their financial supporters are refusing to pick a side. This shared ownership structure suggests that the industry giants are not viewing the market as a zero-sum game where one player must crush the other.
A shared balance sheet
According to an analysis of PitchBook data by WIRED, approximately 90 venture capital firms and money managers have poured capital into both companies over the last few years. OpenAI shares roughly 42 percent of its investor base with Anthropic. About a third of Anthropic’s backers also hold stakes in OpenAI, including heavyweight firms like Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Sound Ventures.
Just last week, Anthropic announced a new round of fundraising that named 31 investors, at least 13 of whom hold positions in OpenAI as well. The actual number of overlapping investors is likely higher, as tracking private deals is notoriously difficult. WIRED identified at least a couple of investors missing from the PitchBook records for OpenAI, including Amazon.
The sheer volume of overlap is startling for two fierce competitors that launched their fundraising campaigns within a couple of years of each other. Three experts in the venture capital sector described this commonality as unusual, and perhaps unprecedented. The situation reflects the recent evolution of the industry, the emergence of two extraordinary companies that have raised unheard-of sums, and the intense competition among them and others in artificial intelligence.
“The ownership structure you are seeing right now is a real insight into how sophisticated investors are viewing this market, and 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,” says Tom Nicholas, a Harvard Business School professor and author of VC: An American History.
Doubling down on IPOs
The intersection of investors is particularly notable as both OpenAI and Anthropic aim to make their stock market debuts this year. Initial public offerings are often a chance for investors to realise gains in their ownership of a startup. However, last year, only two-thirds of IPOs attracted a significant rise in value. By holding stakes in both OpenAI and Anthropic, 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 invested in both companies also declined or did not respond to questions about why they decided to back rivals. A few spoke only on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardising industry relationships, with each describing the dual investment opportunities as unlike any circumstance they had encountered before.
Historically, venture capital firms have concentrated their bets on one company in a competitive area to avoid conflicts of interest. Companies sometimes share proprietary information with investors or lean on them for advice and governance, meaning having stakes in rivals invites awkward conversations.
But the venture capital industry has evolved as funds have grown larger. Firms are backing larger numbers of startups, and the companies are staying private longer and raising more money than ever before. OpenAI and Anthropic each have raised well more than $100 billion at valuations approaching $1 trillion.
So over the past decade, the line between different classes of investment firms has become increasingly blurred. About 30 of the overlapping Anthropic and OpenAI investors in the PitchBook data are identified as hedge funds, private equity firms, or wealth managers that commonly spread their bets. The rest are traditional angel or venture capital firms now following the same strategy.
“Any single investor is going to own such a tiny portion of a company that conflicts are not as big of a concern,” Stanford says. They will be privy to less internal information and have diminished ability to influence a company’s trajectory. “Investors have traditionally wanted to invest in one or the other to make one the winner. These companies are growing so big, that split doesn’t really matter,” Stanford says.
Several of the common investors have also invested in Elon Musk’s AI research lab, xAI. It was bought out this year by SpaceX, which is expected to hold its own IPO next week.
The closest parallel to the AI investor cross-pollination may come from about a decade ago. Japanese telecom giant SoftBank invested billions of dollars in ride-hailing companies around the world, some of which had ambitions of competing against one another in certain countries. But in the US, while SoftBank backed Uber, it did not end up investing in Lyft, the main rival.
‘Pepsi and Coke’
A representative from one large investor says their firm expects its bets on OpenAI and Anthropic to both pay off because demand for AI technologies is widespread. Another describes their stake in one of the companies as too small to be viewed as conflicting with their larger ownership in the other.
A venture capitalist, who has helped wealthy families across the US invest in funds that include Anthropic and OpenAI shares, describes AI as a transformational technology that will drive growth across all industries. “Why wouldn’t you want to be in both Pepsi and Coke?” he says. “It’s the same here.”
Ankur Nagpal, general partner for USVC, which pools investments starting at as little as $500 from individuals into other funds, makes a similar argument. “Our goal is to create the best way for anyone to own a slice of the most valuable companies in the future,” he says.
It is also possible that uncertainty over OpenAI’s unusual corporate structure, which for years explicitly limited the amount of returns investors could expect, could have motivated some funds to take stakes in Anthropic. And it is difficult to discount a fear of missing out. “In this case, some VCs are getting in because they do not want to miss the next big thing,” says University of Chicago economist Steve Kaplan.
For at least one investor, the overlap was unintended. The firm Madrona Ventures ended up with shares in both AI giants after one startup it invested in was bought by OpenAI and another was acquired by Anthropic. Inadvertent intersections could grow more common as rapid shifts in AI technology prompt startups to alter course more often. An investor might bet on a company pursuing one vision, only to find it suddenly tackling a business that butts up against another investment, PitchBook’s Stanford says.
A handful of big venture capital firms have supported only one of the big AI labs, including OpenAI backers Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital. Menlo Ventures and General Catalyst, meanwhile, only put their money behind Anthropic, according to the PitchBook data.
General Catalyst declined to comment. Khosla did not respond to requests for comment.
Matt Murphy, partner at Menlo Ventures, tells WIRED that the firm goes “all in” to support portfolio companies and does not believe in supporting direct competitors. “There can be nuance in some markets, where two companies may appear adjacent but are ultimately headed in very different directions,” he says. “But we did not view that to be the case with OpenAI and Anthropic, and we never considered investing in OpenAI for that reason.”
Thrive pointed to a year-old X post from its founder, Joshua Kushner, in which he addressed overlap in the AI industry by writing, “Call us old school … but we are serial monogamists.”
Key takeaways
- Approximately 90 venture capital firms have invested in both OpenAI and Anthropic, with OpenAI sharing about 42 percent of its investor base with its rival.
- Investors are treating the two labs as a diversified portfolio rather than a conflict, betting that the widespread demand for AI will ensure returns from both companies.
- While some firms like Menlo Ventures and Khosla Ventures maintain a “serial monogamist” approach to avoid conflicts of interest, many others see the massive valuations of both companies as rendering traditional rivalry irrelevant.
- Unintended overlaps are becoming more common as startups pivot rapidly, with some investors acquiring stakes in both giants through acquisitions of their portfolio companies.
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