When No One on the Team Wants to Sell: The Valuation Game at Anthropic Enters the “Seller Disappearance” Stage

Original Article Title: "Anthropic Employees 'Reluctantly' Hold onto Old Stocks, Investors Line Up But Can't Buy"

Original Article Author: Xiaobing, DeepTech TechFlow

On April 8, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic's employee stock transfer transaction (tender offer) was completed last week. The valuation remains the same as the G round financing in February this year, at a pre-investment valuation of $350 billion (excluding the raised $30 billion).

The transaction itself was not surprising; what was surprising was the outcome: Investors had prepared $5 billion to $6 billion to take over, but the final transaction amount fell far short of the ceiling. It wasn't that there weren't enough buyers, but rather there weren't enough sellers. Anthropic's employees looked at their shares, and most chose not to sell.

What are the employees betting on?

To understand this outcome, one needs to look at two key background figures.

The first is Anthropic's revenue growth rate. By the end of 2025, the company's annualized revenue was around $9 billion. By February 2026 during the G round financing, CFO Krishna Rao disclosed a figure of $14 billion. Sacra's estimate was more aggressive: by March, the annualized revenue had surpassed $30 billion, exceeding OpenAI's $25 billion. Three years ago, when this company had just started generating revenue, its annualized revenue had grown by over 10 times for three consecutive years.

The second is the IPO expectation. In March, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic was in talks with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley for underwriting, aiming to debut on Nasdaq as early as October this year, with a fundraising scale potentially exceeding $60 billion. The valuation range is between $400 billion and $500 billion.

The employees' arithmetic is simple: Sell shares today at a $350 billion valuation, and six months later the company may IPO at a valuation of $400 billion or more. Selling early means giving up the appreciation space to the incoming investors. Moreover, in California, the combined capital gains tax rate from selling stocks this year could exceed 50%.

Selling at the beginning of the year also had the benefit of leaving ten months for tax planning. However, many employees apparently felt that this benefit was not enough to offset the potentially higher price they could get by holding until the IPO.

An Industry-Level Signal

Anthropic's tender offer is not an isolated case. In October 2025, OpenAI just completed a $6.6 billion employee stock transfer, valuing the company at $500 billion. A fascinating detail of that deal: OpenAI initially approved a maximum of $10.3 billion, but employees only sold two-thirds of that amount. The remaining one-third was also chosen to be retained by OpenAI's employees.

SpaceX, Stripe, Databricks are all doing similar things. For super unicorns choosing to stay private long-term, regular employee stock transfers have become a standard move, serving as both a retention tool and a valuation anchor.

But Anthropic's level of "reluctant selling" stands out even within this group. Revenue is growing rapidly, an IPO is on the horizon, and the overall valuation of the AI industry is still on an upward trajectory. With these triple expectations in play, employees have no reason to rush to cash out.

After a $30 Billion Financing, Why Do a Tender Offer?

On February 12, Anthropic just closed a $30 billion Series G financing, led by GIC and Coatue, with D.E. Shaw, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, ICONIQ, and MGX participating. This is the second-largest private funding in tech history, second only to OpenAI's over $40 billion last year.

The company is not short of cash. So why do a tender offer?

Because the money flowing into the company's accounts from financing and the money in employees' pockets are two different things. Anthropic's early employees, especially those who left OpenAI in 2021 to join Dario and Daniela Amodei's venture, hold options and RSUs with substantial paper value. But before the company goes public, all of this is just paper wealth. A tender offer is the only legitimate channel to turn paper into cash.

This is also part of the AI talent war. Meta offering six-figure compensation packages to poach AI researchers is no longer news. If employees' stocks can never be cashed out, no matter how high the paper value is, it won't retain talent. Anthropic needs to provide employees with a regular cash-out window while maintaining team stability. When the window opened, most people took a look outside, then closed it again.

What Does This Mean for the Market?

From an investor's perspective, Anthropic's tender offer, which was not fully subscribed, has created an interesting situation of asymmetric information.

The buyers have the money. As described in a Bloomberg report, "some investors weren't able to pick up as many shares as they planned." While there is ample capital available, the supply of tradable Anthropic shares in the secondary market is extremely scarce. On platforms like EquityZen and Forge, Anthropic's implied valuation has already been pushed to over $500 billion.

This is a bullish signal for the IPO pricing in October. If even internal employees are unwilling to sell at a $350 billion valuation, the pricing in the public market will only be higher. Of course, this is premised on no significant deterioration in the macro environment. Given the current situation of the US-Iran conflict, escalating tariffs, and increased volatility in the US stock market, this premise is by no means a certainty.

Another aspect worth noting is the revenue recognition method. Anthropic recognizes revenue generated through AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure channels in full as its own revenue, with the cloud service provider's share treated as a sales cost. OpenAI, however, uses a net method for Azure sales, only recognizing its share. For the same business, the revenue figures generated by these two accounting methods differ significantly. Bank of America estimates that Anthropic's payments to cloud service providers in 2026 could amount to as much as $6.4 billion. If the SEC were to require a consistent approach before the IPO, the $30 billion annualized revenue figure would be significantly reduced.

However, these are headaches for the investment bank during the IPO roadshow. For a broader set of AI investors, the information revealed in this tender offer can be summarized in one sentence: Anthropic's stock, priced at $350 billion, is in demand with some unable to buy their desired amount, while some are unwilling to sell. In the AI primary market, this seller's advantage situation is becoming increasingly common.

Original Article Link