Glen Anderson has been brokering private equity since 2010, when the number of institutional investors focused on the late-stage private market could be counted on two hands. Today, he says, there are thousands.
As president of investment bank Rainmaker Securities, which focuses exclusively on the private equity markets and facilitates transactions in about 1,000 stocks, Anderson has a front-row seat to one of the most nail-biting big moments in secondary market history. Right now, he suggests, there are three main characters in the narrative: Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX.
Bottom line: the storyline is more complicated than the titles suggest.
Anderson’s reading in Anthropic is consistent with what Bloomberg said informed earlier this week: demand for the company’s stock has become almost insatiable. Bloomberg cited Ken Smythe, founder and CEO of Next Round Capital, as saying the buyers had $2 billion in cash ready to put into Anthropic, even as investors indicated they had about $600 million in OpenAI stock they were trying to sell.
Anderson sees something similar in Rainmaker. “The most challenging stock in our market is anthropogenic,” he told TechCrunch from his home in Miami yesterday afternoon. “There are just no sellers.”
Part of what turbocharged that demand, Anderson argues, was Anthropic very public confrontation With the Ministry of Defense – a turn of events that at first seemed like bad news for the company, but turned into a gift.
“The app became more popular, people rallied around the company as some sort of hero, taking on big government,” he said. “I think that strengthened the story and made it even more distinct from OpenAI.”
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For investors navigating a market where the prevailing logic for years has been to bet everyone, the distinction is increasingly meaningful. Anderson notes that many institutional investors still want exposure to both Anthropic and OpenAI. “The jury’s still out,” he said, on whether the AI model will win out in the end — but at least the momentum has shifted in the secondary market.
That doesn’t mean OpenAI is falling off a cliff. Anderson pushes back a bit on the dual reading of the situation.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a one or the other conversation,” he said.
But there is no excitement. “It’s not a vibrant market like Anthropic right now,” he said.
At the time of the valuation, Anderson broadly confirmed a Bloomberg report that OpenAI shares on the secondary market seem to be valuing the company at $765 billion — a significant discount to the company’s most recent $852 billion pre-market valuation. He cautioned he was working from memory, but said the Bloomberg figure was “in the right range.”
OpenAI itself has tried to provide more control over secondary trading. “People should be extremely wary of any firm that wants to access OpenAI capital, including through an SPV,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg, noting that the company has established authorized channels through banks with no commission to counter what it describes as a high-fee brokerage model.
Banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs may have begun offering OpenAI shares to their high-net-worth clients without a carrying fee, according to Bloomberg. Goldman, meanwhile, charges its usual carry—often 15% to 20% of earnings—for clients seeking anthropogenic exposure.
Unrelated to any of these, SpaceX stands out amid the shifting sentiment around these other powerful brands. Anderson describes it as one of the only names in the Rainmaker universe that never experienced the punitive correction that hit much of the private market between 2022 and 2024, a period when many private companies’ shares fell 60% to 70% from their peak (after their valuations rose at the same rate).
The rocket and satellite behemoth “were almost consistently up and to the right,” Anderson said.
Naturally, Anderson, who has an economic interest in flattering the company and its previous backers, credits SpaceX management with disciplined pricing and not squeezing every last dollar out of every funding round or tender offer.
“A lot of companies will be tempted to increase their stock price every round,” he said. “The problem is that it leaves no room for error.”
SpaceX, on the other hand, played conservatively by “not being too greedy,” and the payoff for earlier investors was huge. “You can imagine if someone came in in 2015, what kind of profit they’re sitting on right now,” Anderson said.
To put a finer point on this comment: SpaceX was valued at about $12 billion in 2015, when Google and Fidelity invested $1 billion in the company. One entry at that price is now sitting on more than 100x earnings, and the company is valued at more than $1 trillion ahead of its planned IPO.
It seems that this IPO is now imminent. SpaceX applied in secret For an initial public offering this week, which would set the stage for one of the biggest market debuts in history, Elon Musk is reportedly aiming to raise between $50 billion and $75 billion, possibly in June. Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut is approaching, valuing the energy giant alone at $1.7 trillion.
Unsurprisingly, the rumored filings have already changed the dynamics of the secondary market for SpaceX shares, according to Anderson.
“Today I said, ‘Can you give me SpaceX?’ “I saw many SpaceX investors coming to me,” he said. “There has been a very active buying side.” But the supply is drying up. The closer a company gets to an IPO, the less incentive existing shareholders have to sell because they can see a liquidity event on the horizon.
This is where things get a little tricky for OpenAI and Anthropic. Both companies are said to be exploring their own public offerings and have indicated they may move this year. But SpaceX is about to test the market’s appetite in a big way by filing first, and Anderson suggested that those who follow will be disadvantaged.
“SpaceX will absorb a lot of liquidity,” he said. “There’s only so much money out there that goes into IPOs.” The first mover reaches the hole first; followers face both more scrutiny and potentially less capital.
It’s a dynamic that’s playing out in every so-called vertical, and one that AI companies aren’t entirely immune to, despite the attention they’re currently receiving. Time your IPO too early and you’re testing market acceptance. Wait for someone else to go first and you may find that the biggest checks have already been written.
You can listen to more of our interview with Anderson in the upcoming episode of the show Download StrictlyVC podcast released every Tuesday. In the meantime, check out the latest episodes, including ones with Whoop CEO Will Ahmed and investor Bill Gurley.
