‘A pressure cooker ready to explode’: The wild secondaries scramble for Anthropic shares

The idiom “feeding frenzy” gained prominence in the mid-century, first primarily to describe the behavior of sharks frenetically ripping into large schools of fish. It’s chaotic, ruthless, and triggered by the perception of abundance. And I suspect the phrase gained popularity both because it’s evocative, and because there’s more than one kind of shark out there. And right now, quite a few sharks are circling the secondaries market around Anthropic, which is widely expected to go public this year (as is rival OpenAI). 

If you’ve missed the ruckus: Anthropic, the maker of Claude and last publicly valued at a now-quaint $380 billion, is raising a new round of funding—the company’s reportedly looking to rake in as much as $50 billion at a valuation in the $900 billion ballpark. And talking to brokers, investors, and founders about it, they all had the same, clear message: This is not normal. 

“Anthropic has all this clumped-up, pent-up demand, and it’s like a pressure cooker ready to explode,” said Hari Raghavan, an angel investor and founder who’s currently starting a new fund with longtime private capital markets executive Clara Vydyanath. “If you have pent-up demand and a lack of clean paths you can use to vent the exhaust, what happens is that the whole thing blows up.”

And the demand for Anthropic is explosive, four industry insiders agreed. At the start of this decade, Anthropic didn’t exist, and this year, the company’s ostensibly set to take in $45 billion. This reported (and eye-watering) figure appears to be annualized revenue run rate, which is definitionally dicey—it’s a snapshot-estimate of where revenue will land if recent pace holds. That number isn’t reality, not yet. 

But reality isn’t the driving force around the tidal wave of demand for Anthropic shares. It all started in late April, when Anthropic put out a call for investor allocations: The message? You want a block of Anthropic shares, you have 48 hours to submit the size of your offer. 

The result: a market so frothy people are willing to wire hundreds of thousands of dollars to a broker, without verifying if the shares they’re buying are even real. Read my full story here.

Have a great long weekend and we’ll see you Tuesday,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com

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VENTURE CAPITAL

– Farther, a New York City-based digital wealth management platform for financial advisors, raised $150 million in Series D funding. General Atlantic led the round and was joined by existing investors.

– Pivot, a Paris, France-based AI-powered procurement management platform, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Notion Capital and Forestay led the round and were joined by Greyhound Capital and others. 

– REPS, a Tyrol, Austria-based developer of road-embedded technology that harvests energy from vehicle traffic, raised $23.6 million in funding from undisclosed investors. 

– The Path, a San Francisco-based AI-powered virtual wardrobe and personal styling platform, raised $14.3 million in seed funding. Prime Movers Lab led the round and was joined by Apolo Anton Ohno, Deontay Wilder, Designer Fund, and others.

– Vêtir, a New York City-based AI-powered luxury wardrobe platform, raised $5.5 million in Series A funding from Laidlaw & Company and others.

– Shatterdome Energy, a Dover, Del.-based AI-powered battery storage and energy trading platform, raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding. Crucible Capital led the round.

PRIVATE EQUITY

– Accel-KKR acquired a majority stake in UpKeep, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based AI-powered maintenance management (CMMS) and asset operations platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– Advantage Distribution Holdings, backed by Tigertail Capital Partners, acquired cfm Distributors, a Kansas City, Mo.-based HVACR distributor. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– Bregal Sagemount and Ardian acquired a majority stake in Ennov, a Paris, France-based provider of regulatory and quality management software for life sciences companies. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

EXITS

– Corten Capital acquired Beacon Intelligence, a London, U.K.-based data and workflow platform for life sciences R&D, from Graphite Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.

OTHERS

– Analog Devices agreed to acquire Empower Semiconductor, a Milpitas, Calif.-based power delivery company for AI, for $1.5 billion in cash.

PEOPLE

– a16z, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm, hired Peter Levine as a General Partner. 

– Capitol Meridian Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm, hired Ryan McCarthy as an Operating Partner. McCarthy previously served as U.S. Secretary of the Army.