With AI, Investor Loyalty Is (Almost) Dead: At least a dozen OpenAI VCs now also back Anthropic

With OpenAI close to closing a new $100 billion round, and Anthropic just closing its massive $30 billion raise, one thing is clear: the concept of “investor loyalty” is still hanging by a thread.

At least a dozen direct OpenAI investors were announced as backers of Anthropic’s $30 billion raise earlier this month, including Founders Fund, Iconiq, Insight Partners, and Sequoia Capital.

Some dual investments are understandable if they come from the hedge fund or asset manager worlds, where their MO is still largely invested in public stocks (whether competing or not). These include D1, Fidelity, and TPG.

One of these was a bit shocking. Funds affiliated with BlackRock joined Anthropic’s $30 billion raise although senior managing director and BlackRock board member Adebayo Ogunlesi also sits on OpenAI’s board.

That’s right, in this world, if various BlackRock funds got the opportunity to own OpenAI stock, they would likely seize it, regardless of the personal connection to a member of their senior leadership. (BlackRock manages all types of funds including mutual funds, closed-end funds, and wire transfers.) And we all know the history of the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft as to why Microsoft should be hedging its bets. Ditto for Nvidia.

But venture capital funds have – so far – worked differently.

Venture capitalists market themselves as “founder friendly” and “helpful.” The idea is that when a venture capital firm buys part of a startup, the investor will help that startup succeed, especially against its major competitors. If you’re an owner of both OpenAI and Anthropic, who are you loyal to besides your investors?

In addition, startups are private companies. They usually share confidential information with their direct investors about the status of the business. This is data that is not publicly disclosed as is the case with public companies. In many cases, VCs also hold seats on boards of directors, which is another level of fiduciary responsibility to their portfolio companies.

What makes this particular case even more interesting is that Sam Altman himself is from the world of venture capital as a former president of Y Combinator. He knows the drill. In 2024, he reportedly gave his investors a list of OpenAI competitors that he didn’t want them to return either. It largely included companies launched by people who left OpenAI, including Anthropic, xAI, and Safe Superintelligence.

Altman later denied that he told OpenAI investors that they would be locked out of future rounds if they backed his list of potential competitors. Altman admitted that he said that if they “made non-passive investments,” they would no longer receive OpenAI’s confidential business information, according to documents contained in the lawsuit between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Business Insider reported.

AI is also breaking the mold due to the record sums of money being raised by the largest AI labs as they experience unprecedented growth (and unprecedented data center needs). At some point, when the hat is handed out to the groups, the needs are so great, and the potential for returns so great, who can we expect to say no?

It turns out that not all venture capital investors have yet slid down the slippery slope. Andreessen Horowitz supports OpenAI but does not support Anthropy (yet). Menlo Ventures is backing Anthropic, but not OpenAI (yet), for example.

In fact, in our non-exhaustive research, we found dozens of investors who appear to have direct investments in only one of these companies, not both.

Other companies include Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Greenoaks. (Note: We originally asked Anthropic Claude to provide us with a list of dual investors. She got almost as many entries wrong as she got right. So, all this for a very cool tech whose work sometimes remains less trustworthy than that of an intern.)

However, as previously mentioned, the fact that some of the valley’s most respected companies, such as Sekiwa, have long since abolished this rule, is noteworthy. One investor we reached out to simply shrugged and said that as long as the company didn’t have a board seat, no one would see the harm in it anymore.

However, conflict of interest policies should now become something else founders ask about before signing that term sheet, regardless of who it belongs to.