Anthropic Secures $3.5 Billion in Funding, Tripling Valuation to $61.5 Billion

Anthropic Nears Closing Of $3.5B Funding At $61.5B Valuation -- Report

Anthropic, a ChatGPT rival with its AI assistant Claude, is finalizing a fresh $3.5 billion funding round that would value it at $61.5 billion, per The Wall Street Journal. Investors in the new megaround would include Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX. Anthropic was last valued at $18.5 billion in February 2024. The round would value Anthropic at more than Elon Musk's xAI, which was valued at $50 million in November after its $6 billion Series C (which Lightspeed and MGX also participated in). That Google deal came just two months after Amazon agreed to invest another $4 billion in the AI startup. That deal followed Amazon's 2023 announcement to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic -- a deal that gave the Seattle-based e-commerce and cloud titan a minority stake in the startup.

Anthropic Raises $3.5 Billion at $61.5 Billion Valuation

The announcement follows the release of Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code. AI startup Anthropic announced on Monday that it secured $3.5 billion in a Series E funding round, bringing its post-money valuation to $61.5 billion. The investment was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with contributions from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, among others. The company plans to use the funds to advance AI research, expand compute capacity, and accelerate international growth. "With this investment, Anthropic will advance its development of next-generation AI systems, expand its compute capacity, deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment, and accelerate its international expansion," the company stated. In November 2024, the AI startup secured $4 billion from Amazon Web Services (AWS). With the latest funding, its total now stands at $18.2 billion, according to Crunchbase. The announcement follows the release of Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code. "Claude 3.7 Sonnet has set a new high-water mark in coding abilities -- an area where Anthropic plans to make further progress in the coming months," the company said. The company said that businesses across sectors are integrating Anthropic's AI into their workflows. Replit uses Claude in its "Agent" tool to generate code from natural language and reported a 10X revenue increase. Thomson Reuters' CoCounsel platform leverages Claude for tax assistance, while Novo Nordisk has reduced clinical study report writing time from 12 weeks to 10 minutes using Claude. Recently, Amazon announced that Alexa+ is powered by Anthropic models, expanding its capabilities for Prime members. The company said that it remains focused on AI research and safety. "We are committed to deepening our understanding of frontier AI systems and ensuring artificial intelligence serves human progress," the company stated.

Anthropic closes in on $3.5 billion funding round as investor interest soars

Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO, speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025. Anthropic is in talks to raise a $3.5 billion funding round, significantly more than the amount previously expected, CNBC has confirmed. The round would roughly triple the artificial intelligence startup's valuation to $61.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details aren't public. Lightspeed Ventures is leading the funding, with participation from General Catalyst and others, the sources said. The financing, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, signals continued investor demand for top-tier AI companies, even in the face of potential disruption from China's DeepSeek. Anthropic is backed by Amazon and Google, and had initially set out to raise $2 billion, according to a source. Anthropic declined to comment. The company's last private market valuation was $18 billion. Amazon has poured $8 billion into the startup. Anthropic was founded by early OpenAI employees and is the creator of the popular chatbot Claude. Earlier Monday, Anthropic released what it says is it's "most intelligent AI model yet. Its so-called hybrid model combines an ability to reason -- or stopping to think about complex answers -- with a traditional model that spits out answers in real time.

Anthropic's valuation triples to $61.5bn in bumper AI funding round

Four-year-old artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic has raised $3.5bn in a deal that triples its valuation to more than $60bn, as it aims to keep pace with OpenAI and ahead of newer rivals including China's DeepSeek. The investment comes a week after Anthropic launched its "most intelligent" model to date, named Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and will be spent on computing resources to develop new models, as well as international expansion in Asia and Europe. The funding round, which was several times subscribed, suggests that investors remain bullish on about the potential for heavily lossmaking AI start-ups to continue their rapid growth, despite fears that rivals including DeepSeek are closing the gap with cheaper models and that the highly sophisticated technology is quickly becoming commoditised. The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, which invested $1bn into Anthropic, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deal. Other investors include Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street and Salesforce Ventures. Anthropic is already backed by big tech groups Amazon and Google, both of which have committed billions of dollars to the start-up, which is building advanced AI models primarily for use by businesses. The company was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees. Anthropic has since differentiated itself from rivals by emphasising model safety. Its set of "Claude" models are among the most capable in the world, rivalling OpenAI's GPT series, Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama in a number of independent evaluations, and outperform those in areas including coding. Krishna Rao, Anthropic's chief financial officer, said: "This investment fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve, while deepening our understanding of how these systems work." The pace of AI investment has become increasingly frenzied over the past two years, since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT. OpenAI is in the process of raising $40bn from SoftBank and other investors, while Elon Musk's xAI raised more than $10bn last year. Safe Superintelligence, a company launched last year by OpenAI's co-founder Ilya Sutskever, was in talks to raise capital at a valuation of $30bn or more, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deal. It has not yet announced a product. Anthropic initially sought to raise about $2bn, according to people familiar with the talks, but ultimately raised $3.5bn at a $61.5bn valuation. "We're extremely excited by the consistent exponential growth in AI," said Ravi Mhatre, a Lightspeed partner and co-founder. "[Anthropic] understand intelligence as a product, recognising that enterprise success will be a critical factor for delivering ongoing resources and proving grounds for transformative AI development."

AI startup Anthropic finalizing $3.5 billion funding round, WSJ reports

Feb 24 (Reuters) - AI startup Anthropic is looking to raise $3.5 billion in its latest funding round which would value the startup behind the chatbot Claude at $61.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Investors in the latest round include venture firms Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Bessemer Venture Partners, WSJ said. Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX is also in talks, according to the report. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. In January, Reuters had reported the startup was nearing a deal to raise an additional $2 billion at a price that values the company at $60 billion, months after its $4 billion funding from Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab. Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google is making a fresh investment of more than $1 billion into the AI startup, the Financial Times had reported late last month. It already has an existing commitment of $2 billion in Anthropic. Anthropic, a major competitor of OpenAI in the foundation model space, was valued at around $18 billion in a fundraise led by Menlo Ventures last year. On Monday, Anthropic launched an advanced AI model, called Claude 3.7 Sonnet, that can produce faster responses or display its step-by-step reasoning process, as it looks to gain a competitive edge in the generative artificial intelligence industry. Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

AI Startup Anthropic Valued at $61.5B After Latest Funding Round

A former Senior Publishing Editor on the Dow Jones Newswires team at The Wall Street Journal, Aaron earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Master's in Journalism from Columbia University. Anthropic said Monday it raised $3.5 billion in its latest funding round, giving the Amazon- and Google-backed AI startup a $61.5 billion post-money valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the funding round, Anthropic said, and other investors included Cisco Investments, Salesforce Ventures, and Fidelity Management & Research Company. Anthropic said with this latest investment, it "will advance its development of next-generation AI systems, expand its compute capacity, deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment, and accelerate its international expansion." The news comes a week after Anthropic announced Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its "most intelligent model to date and the first hybrid reasoning model on the market," and Claude Code, "a command line tool for agentic coding." Anthropic says the products "mark an important step towards AI systems that can truly augment human capabilities."

Anthropic stock valuation soars to $61.5 billion in new funding - WSJ By Investing.com

On Monday, the AI startup Anthropic successfully approached the final stages of securing a $3.5 billion funding round, reflecting a notable increase in the company's valuation to $61.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. This substantial valuation underscores the market's confidence in the firm, particularly in the wake of challenges posed by the emergence of China's DeepSeek. Anthropic, known for developing the Claude chatbot, originally aimed to raise $2 billion but managed to boost the amount during negotiations with investors. Established in 2021 by a team of former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has quickly risen to prominence in the AI industry. Prior to this funding round, the company was valued at $18 billion, positioning it as a significant contender in the AI space, potentially rivaling industry giant OpenAI. The investment round drew participation from several venture firms, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Additionally, MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, is reportedly in discussions to contribute to the funding. The increased investment is a testament to Anthropic's potential in the AI market, as the company continues to attract substantial financial backing. With this new funding, Anthropic is poised to further its development and compete in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector.

Anthropic raises $3.5B to fuel its AI ambitions

AI startup Anthropic today announced that it raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion post-money valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The Series E, which also had participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, brings the company's total raised to $18.2 billion, according to Crunchbase. "With this investment, Anthropic will advance its development of next-generation AI systems, expand its compute capacity, deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment, and accelerate its international expansion," the company wrote in a blog post. "With this foundation, Anthropic is focused on developing AI systems that can serve as true collaborators, working alongside teams to tackle complex projects, synthesize information across fields, and help organizations achieve outsized impact." Anthropic's mammoth round of fundraising comes shortly after the launch of the company's latest flagship AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, a "hybrid reasoning" model that can more carefully consider queries before answering.

A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Closes Deal That Values It at $61.5 Billion

The artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic said on Monday that it had completed a new fund-raising deal that valued the company at $61.5 billion, up from about $16 billion a little more than a year ago. Led by the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, the new round will pump an additional $3.5 billion into the company. Since its founding in 2021, Anthropic has raised more than $14.8 billion from venture firms like Menlo Ventures and tech giants like Amazon, Google and Salesforce. The deal comes amid a surge in funding activity for the industry's most prominent A.I. start-ups. OpenAI is set to complete a $40 billion fund-raising deal that would value the company at $300 billion, nearly double its valuation from just five months ago. Elon Musk's xAI is in talks for a new financing round that could value it at as much as $75 billion, up from about $40 billion just two months ago, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. OpenAI started the A.I. boom in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, setting off a funding surge that moved billions into a wide range of start-ups. Enthusiasm among investors for A.I. companies cooled in 2024, as several high-profile start-ups were essentially folded into tech giants like Google and Amazon. But as companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, with its chatbot called Claude, have continued to improve their A.I. technologies, investor interest has returned. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.) Dario Amodei, Anthropic's chief executive, and his sister, Daniela Amodei, its president, founded the company as a start-up that would build A.I. with guardrails. Like several others on the company's founding team, they had left OpenAI after disagreements with the start-up's leadership over how its technologies were being funded and released through Microsoft. In a podcast interview in 2023, Mr. Amodei said there was a 10 to 25 percent chance that A.I. technology could destroy humanity. But in October, he struck a more optimistic tone, publishing a 14,000-word essay on the potential benefits of A.I. technologies. "I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of A.I. could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be," he wrote. The next month, Anthropic raised $4 billion from Amazon, its largest investor, which has put a total of $8 billion into the start-up. Anthropic builds and operates its A.I. systems using computer data centers owned by Amazon and Google.

Anthropic reportedly ups its next funding round to $3.5B | TechCrunch

Anthropic's next funding round is reportedly growing larger. Anthropic, which makes the AI chatbot Claude, is finalizing a $3.5 billion fundraising round that values the company at $61.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Anthropic initially set out to raise $2 billion, but investors have now agreed to a larger tranche, per the WSJ. Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX are said to be in talks to participate in the coming round. Should it top out at $3.5 billion, it'd bring Anthropic's total raised to around $18 billion. Anthropic, which this week released a new flagship AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, recently hit about $1.2 billion in annualized revenue, according to the WSJ. But it's still losing money. The company intends to put the proceeds from its next round toward developing more capable AI technologies.

Anthropic raises $3.5 billion, reaching $61.5 billion valuation as AI investment frenzy continues

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Anthropic closed a $3.5 billion Series E funding round, valuing the AI company at $61.5 billion post-money, the firm announced today. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round with a $1 billion contribution, cementing Anthropic's status as one of the world's most valuable private companies and demonstrating investors' unwavering appetite for leading AI developers despite already astronomical valuations. The financing attracted participation from an impressive roster of investors including Salesforce Ventures, Cisco Investments, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, D1 Capital Partners, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners. "With this investment, Anthropic will advance its development of next-generation AI systems, expand its compute capacity, deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment, and accelerate its international expansion," the company said in its announcement. Revenue skyrockets 1,000% year-over-year as enterprise clients flock to Claude Anthropic's dramatic valuation reflects its exceptional commercial momentum. The company's annualized revenue reached $1 billion by December 2024, representing a tenfold increase year-over-year, according to people familiar with the company's finances. That growth has accelerated further, with revenue reportedly increasing by 30% in just the first two months of 2025, according to a Bloomberg report. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic has positioned itself as a more research-focused and safety-oriented alternative to its chief rival. The company's Claude chatbot has gained significant market share since its public launch in March 2023, particularly in enterprise applications. Krishna Rao, Anthropic's CFO, said in a statement that the investment "fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve," adding that "continued advances in scaling across all aspects of model training are powering breakthroughs in intelligence and expertise." AI valuation metrics evolve: 58x revenue multiple shows market maturation The funding round comes at a pivotal moment in AI startup valuations. While Anthropic's latest round values the company at roughly 58 times its annualized revenue, down from approximately 150 times a year ago, this still represents an extraordinary premium compared to traditional software companies, which typically trade at 10 to 20 times revenue. What we're witnessing with AI valuations isn't merely another tech bubble, but rather a fundamental recalibration of how growth is valued in the marketplace. Traditional valuation models simply weren't designed for companies experiencing growth curves this steep. When a firm like Anthropic can increase revenue tenfold in a single year -- something that would take a typical software company a decade to achieve -- investors are essentially buying future market dominance rather than current financials. This phenomenon creates a fascinating paradox: as AI companies grow larger, their revenue multiples are contracting, yet they remain astronomically high compared to any other sector. This suggests investors aren't simply drunk on AI hype but are making calculated bets that these firms will eventually grow into their valuations by capturing the enormous productivity gains that advanced AI promises to unleash across every sector of the economy. Anthropic's valuation surge contrasts with conventional tech wisdom that multiples should decrease as companies mature. The continued investor enthusiasm underscores beliefs that AI represents a fundamental technological shift rather than just another software category. Amazon and Google back Anthropic's B2B strategy with $11 billion combined investment The funding comes after Anthropic secured major strategic investments from tech giants. Amazon has invested a total of $8 billion in the startup, making AWS Anthropic's "primary cloud and training partner" for deploying its largest AI models. Google has also committed more than $3 billion to the company. Unlike OpenAI, which has increasingly focused on developing consumer applications, Anthropic has positioned itself primarily as a B2B technology provider enabling other companies to build with its models. This approach has attracted clients ranging from startups like Cursor and Replit to global corporations including Zoom, Snowflake, and Pfizer. "Replit integrated Claude into 'Agent' to turn natural language into code, driving 10X revenue growth," Anthropic noted in its announcement. Other notable implementations include Thomson Reuters' tax platform CoCounsel, which uses Claude to assist tax professionals, and Novo Nordisk, which has used Claude to reduce clinical study report writing "from 12 weeks to 10 minutes." Anthropic also highlighted that Claude now helps power Amazon's Alexa+, "bringing advanced AI capabilities to millions of households and Prime members." SoftBank, OpenAI, and DeepSeek intensify global AI competition with billion-dollar moves The funding announcement comes just weeks after reports that SoftBank is finalizing a massive $40 billion investment in OpenAI at a $260 billion pre-money valuation, highlighting the escalating stakes in the AI race. Meanwhile, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has disrupted the market with its R1 model, which reportedly achieved similar capabilities to U.S. competitors' systems but at a fraction of the cost. This challenge has prompted established players to accelerate their development timelines. Anthropic recently responded with the launch of Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code, with Sonnet 3.7 specifically optimized for programming tasks. The company claims these products have "set a new high-water mark in coding abilities" and plans "to make further progress in the coming months." The trillion-dollar AI market: Investors bet big despite profitability questions The massive funding rounds flowing into leading AI companies signal that investors believe the generative AI market could indeed reach the $1 trillion valuation that analysts predict within the next decade. However, profitability remains a distant goal. Like its competitors, Anthropic continues to operate at a significant loss as it invests heavily in research, model development, and compute infrastructure. The long path to profitability hasn't deterred investors, who view these companies as platforms that could fundamentally transform how humans interact with technology. As the AI arms race intensifies, the key question remains whether these multi-billion dollar valuations will eventually be justified by sustainable business models or if the current investment environment represents an AI bubble. For now, Anthropic's successful fundraise suggests investors are firmly betting on the former.

Anthropic Slated to Hit $61.5 Billion Valuation in New Round

Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is nearing a deal to raise $3.5 billion at a valuation of $61.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter -- a larger funding round than the company initially planned to raise. Anthropic, which develops large language models, is one of the leading AI companies in an era where investors are eager to write big checks for the sector. Since January, Elon Musk's xAI has discussed raising $10 billion from investors, and OpenAI has held talks to bring in as much as $40 billion.

Amazon-backed AI firm Anthropic valued at $61.5 billion after latest round

Anthropic says it's released its 'most intelligent' AI model yet as competition ramps up In December, Anthropic's revenue hit an annualized $1 billion, which was an increase of roughly 10 times year over year, a person who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the numbers told CNBC at the time. The company's revenue comes primarily from enterprise sales, and its clients currently include startups like Cursor, Codeium and Replit, as well as larger businesses like Zoom, Snowflake, Pfizer, Thomson Reuters and Novo Nordisk, the company behind Ozempic, according to a release. Anthropic also spotlighted in its release about the funding round that its technology now fuels Amazon's Alexa+, "bringing Claude to millions of households and Prime members." Krishna Rao, Anthropic's CFO, said in a release that the latest investment "fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve" and that "continued advances in scaling across all aspects of model training are powering breakthroughs in intelligence and expertise." News of the latest funding round comes after Google in January agreed to a new investment of more than $1 billion in Anthropic, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC at the time. The fresh funding built on Google's past investments of $2 billion in Anthropic and 10% ownership stake in the startup, as well as a large cloud contract between the two companies. Anthropic is most well known for its Claude AI chatbot. The generative AI market, which includes Anthropic and OpenAI as well as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Amazon and Microsoft, which is OpenAI's principal investor, are backing generative AI startups with hefty investments as well as developing their own technologies. Amazon announced that it would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic in November. That brought Amazon's total investment in the startup to $8 billion. Amazon remains a minority investor, Anthropic confirmed to CNBC at the time, and does not have a board seat. As part of the November investment, Amazon Web Services became Anthropic's "primary cloud and training partner." Anthropic has used Amazon Web Services' Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy its largest AI models since then. Anthropic ramped up its technology development throughout last year, and in October, the startup said that its AI agents were able to use computers like humans can to complete complex tasks. Anthropic's Computer Use capability allows its technology to interpret what's on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing, the startup said.