Anthropic issued a revised warning on Thursday, narrowing the roster of secondary‑market platforms it considers unauthorized from eight to four. The updated notice lists Open Door Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama and Upmarket, while dropping the names of several high‑profile firms, including Hiive, that had been singled out in the original statement.
The initial warning, released earlier this month, declared any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock through the named platforms void and unrecognised on the company’s books. It applied to both preferred and common shares and marked the first time a major artificial‑intelligence startup publicly identified specific platforms as prohibited.
Investors reacted sharply. Publicly traded funds that marketed exposure to Anthropic shares saw their prices tumble, private brokers scrambled to reassess positions, and shareholders who bought through the listed platforms were left uncertain about the legal standing of their holdings.
Sim Desai, chief executive of Hiive, pushed back on LinkedIn, asserting that his platform does not facilitate share transfers without the company’s approval. After Hiive’s name was removed, Desai said the original post had caused confusion and damaged his firm’s reputation, adding that Anthropic had not approached Hiive before issuing the aggressive stance.
Both Anthropic and its rival OpenAI embed transfer restrictions in shareholder agreements, a clause many buyers overlooked while chasing exposure to pre‑IPO AI companies. The warning turned ordinary contractual language into a market‑moving event.
Secondary‑market activity around Anthropic had already reached fever‑pitch. In April, shares were trading at an implied $1 trillion valuation, driven by a surge in annual recurring revenue from $9 billion to $30 billion in a single quarter. Sellers were even posting price tags that suggested a $1.15 trillion implied value.
On the same day as the revised warning, Anthropic announced a $65 billion financing round that values the company at $965 billion, temporarily eclipsing OpenAI’s market cap. The round follows a Series G that closed at $380 billion in February, positioning the new valuation between earlier private‑market pricing and the $1 trillion secondary‑market estimate.
Anthropic’s leadership faces a paradox. The firm needs secondary‑market liquidity to attract and retain employees whose compensation includes equity, yet it also seeks to control who trades its shares to preserve governance, comply with securities regulations and manage its cap table ahead of a potential public offering. The original warning, critics argue, overreached and harmed legitimate platforms.
Sources indicate the company is already in early IPO discussions with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, targeting a possible listing as early as October. Controlling the secondary market is seen as a prerequisite for a clean public debut.
Anthropic declined to comment to Bloomberg, and the four platforms that remain on the list have not issued public statements. Investors who purchased shares through the removed platforms now have clarity, while those who used the remaining four still face uncertainty.
This article was written with the assistance of AI.
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