OpenAI and Anthropic have battled for workers, customers, and public attention. The rival AI labs have been on opposite sides of policy proposals, and their CEOs were the only ones not to link hands among a dozen industry leaders at a business summit earlier this year. But they do have one big area of overlap: their investors.
About 90 venture capital firms and other money managers have invested in both OpenAI and Anthropic over the past few years, according to a WIRED analysis of data from PitchBook, a platform that tracks startup investments. OpenAI shares about 42 percent of its overall investors with Anthropic, according to the data. Roughly a third of Anthropic investors are also OpenAI backers, including major firms like Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Sound Ventures.
Just last week, Anthropic made a fundraising announcement that named 31 investors—at least 13 of which have stakes in OpenAI, according to the PitchBook data and WIRED reporting. The number of common investors may be an undercount, because collecting information about private investments is challenging. WIRED identified at least a couple of investors missing from OpenAI’s roster in the PitchBook data, including Amazon.
The amount of overlap is astonishing for two fierce competitors that began their fundraising within a couple of years of one another. Three experts who study the venture capital industry described the commonality as unusual, or even unprecedented. The phenomenon reflects the recent evolution of the venture capital industry, the emergence of two extraordinary companies that have raised unheard-of sums of money, and the wide-open competition among them and others in AI.
“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.
The intersection of investors is also notable as Anthropic and OpenAI aim to make their stock market debuts this year. Initial public offerings are often a chance for investors to realize gains in their ownership of a startup. But last year, just two-thirds of IPOs attracted a significant pop in value. With bets 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 didn’t respond to requests for comment. Several venture capital firms that invested in OpenAI and Anthropic also declined or didn’t respond to requests for comment about why they decided to back both.
A few would speak only on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing industry relationships, and each called the dueling investment opportunities with OpenAI and Anthropic unlike any circumstance they had encountered before.
Historically, venture capital firms have concentrated their bets on one company in an area of competition to avoid conflicts of interest, Stanford says. Companies sometimes share proprietary information with investors or lean on them for advice or governance, and having stakes in rivals invites awkward conversations.
