Anthropic’s secondary-market valuation breaks $1 trillion: Forge Global overtakes OpenAI’s $880 billion

According to a report by Decrypt 4/23, Forge Global’s CEO Kelly Rodriques—an executive at the private equity trading platform—told Business Insider that Anthropic’s implied valuation on its platform is currently hovering around $1 trillion, while OpenAI’s valuation over the same period is about $880 billion. This marks the first time the two AI flagship companies have flipped positions in secondary market valuations—three months ago, the private market consensus was still that OpenAI was clearly ahead.

Valuation numbers at a glance

Company Forge Global implied valuation Most recent major fundraising valuation Secondary vs. primary gap Anthropic about $1 trillion $380 billion (G round in Feb 2026; led by GIC and Coatue; $30 billion) about 2.6x OpenAI about $880 billion $852 billion (early 2026 primary round) about 1.03x

Key drivers: Revenue jumps 233% in three months

Anthropic’s surge in secondary market valuation corresponds to changes in its fundamentals. According to multiple reports, Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate (annualized revenue run rate, ARR) rose from about $9 billion at the end of 2025 to about $30 billion by March 2026, representing 233% growth in a single quarter. The driving forces are enterprise adoption of Claude Code and expansion of its API/enterprise product lines. This is why investors are willing to buy their Anthropic stake in the secondary equity market—where liquidity is limited, there are no board seats, and there are no mandatory exit rights—at a valuation far higher than the $38 billion G round.

OpenAI’s secondary premium narrows sharply

By comparison, OpenAI’s secondary valuation on Forge of $880 billion is only about 3% higher than its $852 billion primary valuation. Secondary markets often apply a premium or discount to top companies depending on investors’ views on future growth and exit paths—Anthropic expanding its premium to nearly 3x to a state roughly matching OpenAI indicates that capital is being reallocated based on renewed confidence in the future trajectories of the two companies.

Key takeaway: Secondary prices don’t equal primary valuations

In this report, several analysts emphasized that secondary market valuations and the valuations of the next primary round are different in nature. Secondary buyers are purchasing a minority equity stake with constrained liquidity, no board seats, and no forced IPO or M&A rights—so the price they are willing to pay reflects “confidence in future exit value,” rather than “the amount the company can raise right now.” In other words, a $1 trillion Forge deal price doesn’t mean Anthropic can currently raise $1 trillion, nor does it mean that future IPO pricing will necessarily be set at that price.

Industry context: A rebalancing of AI leadership

This reversal lines up with multiple narrative threads from recent AI industry events: first, Anthropic’s Mythos weapon-grade cybersecurity model has entered the scope of U.S. government procurement; second, OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 launch expands the Terminal-Bench score gap; third, Sam Altman publicly criticized Anthropic for positioning its models with “fear marketing.” The secondary market valuations reflect a combined assessment of technical prospects, policy posture, and business execution—when Claude Code penetrates the enterprise market faster than expected, money moves early in the secondary market with a logic like “this could be worth a lot when the future IPO comes.”

For readers tracking AI capital markets, the key isn’t short-term swings in valuation champions, but what this figure reveals: AI’s lead position isn’t determined by a single metric. Valuation is simultaneously influenced by four lines—technology (model capability), policy (government procurement), business (enterprise adoption), and narrative (industry discourse). The main fuel behind Anthropic’s outperformance this time is the business line (tripling ARR); the next battleground will return to the technology line (GPT-5.5 vs Opus 4.8) and the policy line (Mythos’ government positioning).

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