Anthropic Beats OpenAI on Secondary Markets With $1 Trillion Implied Valuation

In brief

• Anthropic's shares are trading at $1 trillion on secondary platforms like Forge Global, overtaking OpenAI which sits at $880 billion on the same venue.
• The company's annualized revenue soared from $9 billion in late 2025 to $30 billion by March 2026—a 233% jump in a single quarter, driven primarily by Claude Code adoption.
• Just three months ago, Anthropic's valuation was $380 billion; secondary markets are now pricing it at more than 2.6 times that figure.

On secondary share trading platforms, Anthropic has quietly flipped the AI power map—trading at roughly $1 trillion, overtaking OpenAI for the first time.

On Forge Global, one of the leading private-share marketplaces, Anthropic is hovering around the $1 trillion mark, according to Forge CEO Kelly Rodriques, who confirmed the figure to Business Insider. OpenAI, meanwhile, is trading at approximately $880 billion on the same platform.

just got offered a $1.05T valuation on my anthropic shares from a very well known growth fund

absolutely wild pic.twitter.com/7LBclQZLQT

— Jesse Leimgruber (@JesseRank) April 21, 2026

That's not a small gap. And it didn't exist three months ago.

In February 2026, Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G round led by GIC and Coatue at a post-money valuation of $380 billion. Today, secondary markets are pricing the company at almost three times that figure. The speed of the appreciation is unusual even by AI's inflated standards.

Anthropic's annualized run rate sat at roughly $9 billion at the end of 2026, based on its own reports. By March 2026, that number had jumped to $30 billion—a 233% increase in a single quarter, fueled largely by enterprise adoption of Claude Code and the company's API products. Amazon's recent commitment of up to $25 billion in additional investment didn't hurt the mood either.

This mix of good deals (and good PR) have increased the appetite for Anthropic shares. Caplight, which tracks private-market share activity, reported that interest in Anthropic has spiked over 650% in the last 12 months.

Besides revenue, the supply side is doing the heavy work pushing up these valuations. Anthropic employees and early investors have had very few chances to sell. When buyers pile in and almost nobody is selling, prices move fast. Glen Anderson of Rainmaker Securities told Business Insider that a $960 billion valuation—which would have been "unthinkable" a month earlier—was being snapped up within hours by competing buyers.

The OpenAI picture looks different. On Forge Global, OpenAI is trading at $880 billion—just 3% above its $852 billion valuation from its early-2026 fundraising round. Caplight found that in Q1, Sam Altman’s company reported more people interested in selling than buying it on secondary markets.

None of this means Anthropic is worth $1 trillion in any primary-market sense. Secondary trades are illiquid, minority positions with no board rights and no path to forced liquidity. The trillion-dollar figure reflects what a buyer will pay for a small stake, not what Anthropic could raise in a full funding round, and not necessarily what an IPO would be priced at.

Reports suggest Anthropic is exploring a public debut as early as late 2026, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan advising, targeting an IPO valuation in the $400–$500 billion range. IPO groundwork has been underway since at least late 2025.

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