Bloomberg: Anthropic vs OpenAI — investor shift favors Anthropic

Founder of investment company Next Round Capital Ken Smythe discussed on Bloomberg Open Interest an unexpected shift in investor sentiment on the artificial intelligence market: according to him, capital is increasingly flowing toward Anthropic, while skepticism is growing around OpenAI despite the company's announced funding round of 122 billion dollars.

What is the essence of the investor shift

Smythe explains that shares related to OpenAI are increasingly "flooding the market" — meaning holders of existing stakes are seeking to lock in profits or reduce exposure by selling them on the secondary market. At the same time, according to his assessment, Anthropic is strengthening itself as a stronger financial bet in the eyes of investors. The most resonant thesis of the interview concerns OpenAI's recent 122 billion dollar round: Smythe questions whether this amount reflects a real, sustainable market valuation of the company — according to his formulation, the round "may not be as real as it seems."

Why this is indicative for the AI investment market

• Speaker — Ken Smythe, founder of Next Round Capital.
• Platform — Bloomberg Open Interest program (Bloomberg Tech).
• Key figure — OpenAI funding round of 122 billion dollars.
• Thesis — OpenAI shares are actively being sold on the secondary market, while Anthropic strengthens its position as a more reliable investment.
• Overall conclusion — the shift of capital toward Anthropic is described as "unexpected" for the market.

The collision of valuations around the two leading AI labs — OpenAI and Anthropic — reflects a broader problem in venture and late-stage financing of technology companies in 2026: giant rounds at ever-higher valuations increasingly raise the question of whether they reflect the fundamental business value — revenue, margins, sustainability of competitive position — or are a product of investor hype and limited supply of stakes in companies in the market's focus.

What this means for the balance of power in the industry

Anthropic, developer of the Claude model family, has long been perceived by investors as a more conservative, security-oriented, and corporate-focused competitor to OpenAI — a company that bet on a mass consumer product in ChatGPT. If Smythe's assessment reflects a broader trend rather than a single investor's opinion, it may suggest that part of the market is beginning to reassess the risks associated with OpenAI's hyper-fast valuation growth and is looking for more predictable exposure to the generative AI sector through alternative leaders.

It should be noted that such statements in investment media reflect the point of view of a specific speaker, not a market consensus — Smythe represents a private investment company Next Round Capital and expresses his own assessment, not Bloomberg's official position. Nevertheless, the very fact that the issue of "overvaluation" of OpenAI's flagship 122 billion dollar round is being discussed in major business media shows: the competition between OpenAI and Anthropic has finally gone beyond technological rivalry and has become a subject of close analysis for the investment community, assessing where capital in the entire AI sector will move in the coming years.

Funding rounds of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars have become a characteristic feature of the generative AI market in recent years — against this backdrop, even small changes in the tone of comments from notable venture market participants can significantly influence the perception of the relative strength of competing labs. The key difference in business models of the two companies also plays a role in such assessments: if OpenAI has historically bet on broad consumer reach through ChatGPT and related products, then Anthropic builds a more pronounced emphasis on corporate and developer clients through APIs and models of the Claude family — and it is precisely this difference in revenue profile and client base that, apparently, underlies the argument about a "more reliable financial bet" that Smythe makes.