With AI, investor loyalty is (almost) dead: At least a dozen OpenAI VCs now also back Anthropic

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What Happened

While some dual investors are understandable, others were more shocking, and signal the disregard of a longstanding ethical conflict-of-interest rule.

Our Take

Venture capital has no loyalty, only returns. This is just capital allocation doing what it always does—follow the best risk-adjusted return. The "ethical conflict of interest" is cute in theory, but VC has never been principled about that stuff. You back multiple competing bets because one of them will exit at 50x and pay for the losses.

Here's the thing: A dozen OpenAI VCs backing Anthropic isn't a scandal, it's transparent portfolio hedging. If you're serious about this sector, you can't put all your chips on one model provider.

This tells you something darker: VCs are hedging because they don't think OpenAI has locked in a moat.

What To Do

If you're picking an LLM vendor, don't assume market leadership = technical superiority; watch where informed capital actually flows.

Builder's Brief

Who

early-stage AI startup founders seeking Series A and beyond

What changes

investor due diligence now includes interrogating whether lead VCs have conflicting frontier lab stakes that could steer vendor or partnership decisions

When

months

Watch for

a major VC firm publishing an explicit dual-investment policy—signals the informal norm is being codified under pressure

What Skeptics Say

Dual investment in competing frontier labs is rational portfolio hedging in a winner-uncertain market, not an ethical breach—the 'conflict of interest' framing assumes VCs owe loyalty to portfolio companies, which has never been a legal obligation and is rarely even a contractual one.

Cited By

TechCrunch With AI, investor loyalty is (almost) dead: At least a dozen OpenAI VCs now also back Anthropic