OpenAI investors also bankroll Anthropic

Venture capital firms that once sold themselves as long-term partners are increasingly buying stakes in competing AI labs at the same time. TechCrunch reports that at least a dozen direct OpenAI investors also participated in Anthropic’s recent $30 billion financing, including Founders Fund, Iconiq, Insight Partners and Sequoia Capital. OpenAI, meanwhile, is described as nearing a new funding round of roughly $100 billion.

The overlap matters because these are not passive public-market positions. In private markets, investors typically receive confidential operational data and strategy updates, and often sit on boards. TechCrunch notes that Sam Altman previously circulated a list of rivals he preferred OpenAI investors not to back, and that he later acknowledged limiting access to OpenAI’s confidential information for investors who made “non-passive investments” in competitors, according to documents cited from the Elon Musk–OpenAI lawsuit and reported by Business Insider.

What changes when the same firms own meaningful pieces of multiple ‘front-runners’ is not just the dinner-party optics; it is how discipline is applied. In older venture cycles, exclusivity functioned as a constraint: a fund picked a horse, then spent years helping it win. In AI, the capital requirements are so large—and the perceived upside so asymmetric—that the safer move for many funds is to buy a basket and call it prudence.

That portfolio logic, however, leaves founders with fewer credible signals about commitment. A board seat comes with fiduciary duties, but the fund’s economics reward exposure to category winners, not necessarily the success of any one company. The information asymmetry cuts both ways: startups share sensitive details with investors, while competitors may be funded by the same partnership down the hall.

TechCrunch highlights a particularly awkward example: BlackRock-affiliated funds joined Anthropic’s round even though BlackRock senior managing director Adebayo Ogunlesi sits on OpenAI’s board. Asset managers can argue that different funds have different mandates, but the practical effect is the same—capital flows wherever allocation committees see the best risk-adjusted return.

Some firms still choose sides. TechCrunch points to Andreessen Horowitz as backing OpenAI but not Anthropic, and Menlo Ventures as backing Anthropic but not OpenAI. Yet the broader direction is clear: as AI labs raise sums normally reserved for sovereigns and oil majors, the old venture etiquette is being replaced by something closer to index investing.

The result is a market where the biggest backers are no longer referees between competitors; they are shareholders in both teams.

At least a dozen OpenAI investors, TechCrunch reports, were also listed in Anthropic’s $30 billion round.