Anthropic’s fundraising fell short of expectations because employees are reluctant to sell old shares, leaving investors with money but unable to buy.

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AI startup Anthropic completed a round of employee share transfer transactions, but the final fundraising amount was far lower than the funds investors had originally planned to invest—not due to lack of demand, but because employees were unwilling to sell their shares.

On April 9, according to Bloomberg reports citing sources, the tender offer was completed last week, with the transaction valuation matching Anthropic’s latest round of financing in February. The company’s valuation reached $350 billion in its most recent financing round (excluding the $30 billion raised). Investors originally prepared up to $6 billion for this transaction, but the actual scale of the deal failed to reach that maximum.

The report noted that employees’ reluctance to sell directly compressed the amount of shares available for transfer. Some investors received full allocations, while others could only use a portion of their reserved funds. Sources said, the lower-than-expected transaction scale actually reflects the employees’ optimism for the company’s prospect, with a tendency to hold onto shares and wait for Anthropic to go public.

Employees Are Optimistic About IPO Prospects, Voluntarily Restrict Available Shares

The core dilemma of this tender offer was that investor demand was ample, but supply was restricted.

According to sources, current and former employees chose to keep more shares because Anthropic’s IPO is expected to happen as early as this year. With clear listing expectations, employees generally prefer to hold equity to seek higher returns in the public market, rather than cashing out early in the secondary market.

This attitude is corroborated by Anthropic’s recent rapid revenue growth. In the past month, the company’s annualized operating revenue surpassed $19 billion, and by April, the number had further surged beyond $30 billion. The rapid rise in revenue has further strengthened employees’ belief that the company’s valuation still has room to grow, reducing their willingness to sell.

Analysts pointed out that for investors, this transaction presented a rare situation: plenty of capital with nowhere to fully deploy. Some institutional investors were unable to build their positions as planned and could only participate at a scale below expectations.

This to some extent highlights the scarcity of top AI company equity—when the IPO window approaches, the bargaining power of internal shareholders increases significantly, and they proactively control the pace of trading.

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