Anthropic cautions investors about unapproved secondary share market platforms

As investors rush to acquire shares in AI companies of all kinds, Anthropic recently updated its website to caution investors that several private and secondary investment platforms offering access to its shares are not authorized to do so.

The company named Open Doors Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama Capital, Lionheart Ventures, Hiive, Forge Global, Sydecar, and Upmarket as firms that are not authorized to facilitate buying or selling its shares.

“Any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock, or any interest in Anthropic stock, offered by these firms is void and will not be recognized on our books and records,” the company’s blog post states.

Reached for comment, Forge Global claimed to have been included in error. “We are working with Anthropic to remove Forge’s name from this alert,” the platform told TechCrunch. “Forge does not facilitate transactions in any private company’s shares without the explicit approval of the company.”

This update comes alongside a rise in the number of investment platforms offering exposure to AI companies' shares (and thus their growth) through secondary markets where existing shareholders sell their shares, “tokenized” securities, special purpose vehicles (SPVs), or secondary market holdings.

Anthropic, rumored to be raising fresh funding at a $900 billion valuation, has been in particularly high demand, with some secondary market brokers telling TechCrunch last month that it is one of the “hardest” stocks to source.

Over the past year, some crypto companies, such as crypto exchange OKX, have launched investment products selling exposure to AI companies. These often take the form of pre-IPO perpetual futures contracts, derivative instruments that track the value of private companies on secondary markets but do not offer ownership of actual shares.

SPVs differ from those derivative systems, offering investors a chance to buy shares of an entity that holds at least some stake in Anthropic. That equity could come from an official investor, or have been acquired when an investor is forced to liquidate its holdings, as happened during the bankruptcy of FTX. In other cases, the equity claim may be entirely fraudulent.

Anthropic says both its preferred and common stock are subject to transfer restrictions, meaning any share sale or transfer not approved by its board of directors will be considered invalid. According to Anthropic, any third-party platform (specifically SPVs and retail investment firms) that claims to sell its shares directly or using forward contracts is unauthorized to do so.

“We do not permit special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to acquire Anthropic stock, and any transfer of shares to an SPV is void under our transfer restrictions,” the company's blog reads. “Offers to invest in Anthropic’s past or future financing rounds through an SPV are prohibited.”