Brandon Fletcher
In a recent blog post published on Thursday, Anthropic announced that it has successfully secured $65 billion in Series H funding, with major contributions from Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital. This funding round has propelled the company’s valuation to an impressive $965 billion post-money. In contrast, OpenAI’s latest blog update estimates its own valuation at $852 billion.
This significant funding shift has altered the competitive landscape among AI-focused technology companies. Anthropic, often referred to as “the Claude one,” now holds a higher valuation than OpenAI, known as “the ChatGPT one.”
It is essential to examine several factors surrounding these valuations. Critics, including Ed Zitron and analysts from HSBC, have pointed out that relying on AI as a primary business model remains largely untested regarding sustainable long-term profitability. Anthropic has reported achieving an operating profit for just a single quarter, as highlighted by the Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, the report also raises concerns about the accounting practices Anthropic employed to report its revenue and costs, suggesting that profitability for the entire year may be uncertain due to anticipated increases in spending linked to its extensive computing requirements.
Labeling Anthropic as a truly profitable enterprise would be misleading. The company’s substantial computing needs are well-known. Anthropic has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars with tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Broadcom over the next decade, and has entered into a significant short-term agreement to allocate $1.5 billion each month to SpaceX.
Investors are certainly aware of these substantial expenditures, yet they also recognize that Anthropic’s revenue surged at the beginning of the 2026 calendar year, driven by a wave of new enterprise clients. The trend of “vibe coding” is becoming prevalent, fostering a narrative where companies seem to rely less on young coders for routine tasks, thanks to innovations like Claude Code and competing products such as OpenAI’s Codex. Recently announced updates to Anthropic’s Claude Code have had notable effects on the stock market, particularly influencing the valuations of software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms.
Rather than leading the pack, OpenAI appears to be in a position of catching up.
It’s also crucial to note that while Anthropic currently holds the title of the highest valuation, OpenAI’s recent assessment was based on a funding round that occurred two months prior to Anthropic’s announcement. This situation is reminiscent of a sports team that surpasses a rival in rankings after playing one more game, indicating that there is still more competition ahead.
Since both OpenAI and Anthropic are presently privately held companies, the process of price discovery remains fragmented and somewhat unclear. Neither company is obligated to publicly disclose earnings or expenditures at this time. For reference, Anthropic’s valuation on Forge Global, a marketplace for secondary private shares, surpassed that of OpenAI last month, with estimates placing Anthropic’s worth at roughly $1 trillion and OpenAI’s at approximately $880 billion.
Looking for a more speculative estimate? Polymarket currently assesses the likelihood of Anthropic achieving a higher valuation than OpenAI by the end of June at 89%, as of this writing.
Greater clarity may soon emerge. A May 20 article from the New York Times, citing “two individuals familiar with the situation,” indicated that OpenAI was anticipated to file for an IPO “in the coming weeks.” It is possible that a confidential filing occurred on May 22. Meanwhile, Forbes reports that Anthropic’s IPO might happen “as soon as October.”
By the fall, the competition may reveal a clearer victor. By that time, the share prices of OpenAI and Anthropic will be publicly accessible in real-time. Should disputes arise regarding which publicly traded AI company holds a greater value, investors can easily turn to platforms like Robinhood to express their opinions with their investments. that decision will carry significant weight.
Daniel Mercer
