Anthropic Dominates Private Markets While SpaceX's IPO Threatens to Steal the Spotlight

The Private Markets Are on Fire — and Three Companies Are Writing the Story

If you want to understand what's happening in today's private securities market, you need to look at three names: Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. According to Glen Anderson, president of Rainmaker Securities, the secondary market for private company shares has never been this electrifying — and the dynamics at play could redefine how investors position themselves in the months ahead.

Anderson has been operating in this space since 2010, when the community of institutional investors focused on late-stage private companies was small enough to count on your fingers. Fast forward to today, and that number has swelled into the thousands. As head of an investment bank that facilitates trades across roughly 1,000 private stocks, Anderson has an unobstructed view of how sentiment is shifting — and right now, he says, the narrative belongs to Anthropic.

Anthropic: The Stock Nobody Wants to Sell

Demand for Anthropic shares has reached a level that Anderson describes simply as nearly impossible to satisfy. The challenge isn't finding buyers — it's finding sellers.

"The hardest stock to source in our marketplace is Anthropic," Anderson told TechCrunch. "There's just no sellers."

This mirrors reporting from Bloomberg, which noted that buyers had signaled as much as $2 billion in ready capital looking for Anthropic exposure. Meanwhile, approximately $600 million worth of OpenAI shares sitting on the market have struggled to find takers — a telling contrast.

The Government Standoff That Became a Branding Moment

One unexpected catalyst for Anthropic's surge in popularity was its very public confrontation with the Department of Defense. What initially appeared to be a liability for the company ended up working in its favor. Users rallied around Anthropic, embracing it as a principled challenger standing up to government overreach.

"The app got more popular, people rallied around the company as kind of a hero, taking on big government," Anderson explained. "I think it amplified the story and made it even more differentiated from OpenAI."

That differentiation is increasingly important to investors who, for years, operated under the assumption that betting on every major AI player was the safest strategy. The market is beginning to draw distinctions — and Anthropic is emerging as the preferred pick, at least for now.

OpenAI: Still Standing, But Losing Its Luster

Anderson is careful not to write OpenAI off entirely. Many institutional investors still want a stake in both companies, and the long-term race to AI dominance is far from settled.

"I wouldn't say it's a one-or-the-other conversation," he noted.

However, the enthusiasm that once surrounded OpenAI has dimmed noticeably. "It's not nearly as vibrant a market as Anthropic right now," Anderson acknowledged.

On the valuation front, secondary market trading suggests OpenAI is being priced as if it were worth around $765 billion — a meaningful discount compared to its most recent primary-round valuation of $852 billion. OpenAI has responded by attempting to tighten its grip on secondary trading, warning investors to be cautious of unauthorized brokers and establishing official channels through major banks to facilitate transactions without fees.

In a notable development, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have reportedly begun offering OpenAI shares to wealthy clients at no carry charge. However, Goldman is applying its standard carry fees — typically between 15% and 20% of profits — for clients seeking access to Anthropic shares, suggesting the bank sees more premium value in Anthropic's equity.

SpaceX: The Outlier That Never Stumbled

While Anthropic and OpenAI navigate shifting investor sentiment, SpaceX occupies an entirely different stratosphere. Anderson points out that the aerospace and satellite giant is one of the rare companies in Rainmaker's portfolio that never suffered through the brutal correction that hammered much of the private market between 2022 and 2024 — a period when many private company valuations plummeted 60% to 70% from their highs.

SpaceX, by contrast, has maintained a trajectory that Anderson describes as "pretty much consistently up and to the right."

He attributes much of this to disciplined financial management — specifically, the company's refusal to squeeze maximum value out of every funding round or tender offer.

"A lot of companies will fall for the temptation to maximize the price of their stock in every round," Anderson said. "The problem is that that doesn't leave any room for error."

SpaceX chose restraint over greed, and the rewards for early investors have been extraordinary. The company was valued at around $12 billion in 2015 when Google and Fidelity jointly pumped $1 billion into it. Today, with SpaceX valued at more than $1 trillion, those early investors are sitting on gains exceeding 100x their original investment.

The IPO That Could Change Everything

SpaceX's confidential IPO filing this week sent shockwaves through the secondary market almost immediately. Reports suggest Elon Musk is targeting a raise of between $50 billion and $75 billion — potentially as early as June — which would make it one of the largest stock market debuts in history. For context, only Saudi Aramco's 2019 IPO, which valued the energy giant at $1.7 trillion, has come anywhere close in scale.

The mere rumor of the filing has already shifted secondary market dynamics. Anderson noted a sharp spike in buy-side interest following the news, but supply is quickly drying up — a natural consequence of shareholders choosing to hold their positions in anticipation of the looming liquidity event.

A Warning for Anthropic and OpenAI

Here's where the story takes a more cautionary turn for the AI companies. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have signaled that they are exploring public offerings and could potentially move before the year is out. But SpaceX, by going first, has effectively claimed the pole position — and whoever comes next will face a tougher road.

"SpaceX is going to soak up a lot of liquidity," Anderson said bluntly. "There's only so much money out there allocated to IPOs."

The first company through the IPO gate gets to set the terms and capture the most eager capital. Those who follow must contend with more scrutiny, potentially diminished investor appetite, and the shadow of whatever valuation benchmark SpaceX establishes. It's a dynamic that has played out across virtually every market sector, and the AI giants — despite the enormous attention surrounding them — are not immune.

Timing, it turns out, may be just as critical as technology. Go too early and you risk being the one testing the market's patience. Wait too long, and the biggest institutional checks may already be committed elsewhere.