Anthropic draws $800 billion offers as OpenAI faces investor scrutiny over strategic shifts

Anthropic Attracts Investor Offers at an $800 Billion Valuation

Anthropic PBC has received several offers from investors for a new round of funding that could value the artificial intelligence startup at about $800 billion or higher -- overtures that the Claude maker has so far resisted, according to people familiar with the matter. The offers would more than double the $350 billion pre-money valuation Anthropic attached to its $30 billion fundraising in February. The discussions between Anthropic and investors are still early and a deal could fail to materialize or the details could change, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Business Insider previously reportedBloomberg Terminal some details of the talks. Anthropic declined to comment. Anthropic has released a series of AI tools aimed at overhauling the way businesses handle tasks from coding to cybersecurity. Those products are resonating with a growing base of business customers, leading to a surge in revenue and rising competition with rival OpenAI. While Anthropic hasn't ruled out raising new money in the coming months, according to one of the people, it's not clear the company will accept investors' terms or if it will raise at an $800 billion value. Anthropic has also discussed a public listing as soon as October, Bloomberg has reported. Investors have been impressed by Anthropic's strong revenue growth, particularly with deep-pocketed enterprise customers. Earlier this month, the startup said it had reached $30 billion in annual run-rate revenue, marking a sharp increase from $19 billion just a few months before. Anthropic has risen in prominence recently after a disagreement with the US Defense Department over the safety of using its AI tools. The company also recently unveiled a new model, Mythos, that it said would be irresponsible to release widely because it can identify and exploit software vulnerabilities.

Anthropic chief Dario Amodei: 'I don't want AI turned on our own people'

Views vary about Dario Amodei. US President Donald Trump has denounced the chief executive of Anthropic and his AI company's fellow founders as radical "leftwing nut jobs". Amodei's offence? Daring to argue that Anthropic's services should not be used by the Pentagon for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The influential tech analyst Ben Thompson has also criticised Amodei for crying wolf about the risks of AI, which he describes as a "disaster-porn-as-marketing tool". Even so, Thompson has just crowned Anthropic as the current frontrunner in the AI race for developing wildly popular coding tools and releasing the powerful Claude Mythos model, of which more later. But the veteran Silicon Valley investor Sir Michael Moritz is far more enthusiastic. "I think he's an extraordinary man, the real genuine article," he tells me. "He is a very deep technologist. He has made great strategic choices." With such a mixed billing, I am all the more intrigued to meet the one-time computational biology researcher who is running one of the fastest-growing companies in history. Anthropic has just raised $30bn at a $380bn valuation and is reportedly heading for a giant stock market flotation later this year. Such is his enthusiasm for AI's potential that Amodei envisions the day when Anthropic will soon be running "a country of geniuses in a data centre" with enormous consequences for all our lives. In spite of chatter that the AI bubble is about to burst and that the technology is now hitting an insanely expensive ceiling, Amodei is convinced that scaling the "Big Blob of Compute", as he calls it, still has a long way to go. "There's no end to the rainbow. There's just the rainbow," he says. "We don't see anything slowing down. "I'm the first to say that it's going to completely transform the world and we're underestimating its significance." Amodei has chosen to meet at the Cotogna restaurant in the historic Jackson Square district in his hometown of San Francisco. Some of the neighbourhood's red-brick buildings date back to the Californian Gold Rush of the early 1850s. Cotogna, I learn, means quince in Italian. Our eatery is described as the more "casual and convivial" sister of the three-star Michelin restaurant Quince next door, perhaps the more natural venue for Silicon Valley's multibillionaires. After arriving early, I am enthusiastically greeted by the hospitality manager, who steers me to an outdoor table, locked down in advance by Anthropic's security team. The only trouble is there is a persistent patter of rain throughout our lunch. But the transparent plastic walls and roof keep us dry. While I wait, I watch driverless white Waymo cars purr along Pacific Avenue, a glimpse of the AI-enabled future hurtling our way. I'm so excited about what we can do for biology. AlphaFold was inspiring to me. I think Demis has shown us all the way Amodei soon arrives dressed in a white T-shirt and blue cardigan. With frizzy hair, blue-framed glasses and intense demeanour, the 43-year-old tech entrepreneur still gives every impression of being the nerdy academic researcher he was at the beginning of his career. We start talking about what it was like for Amodei to grow up in the city's Mission District during the first internet boom. Surprisingly, he says he did not pay it much attention. "Despite growing up here and seeing, you know, Google and Yahoo I was never actually that interested in it," he says. His love at that time was physics, which he studied at Stanford University, before going on to complete a PhD in biophysics and computational neuroscience at Princeton. "I wanted to work on really hard problems. I wanted to understand the world and the universe," he says. "I imagined being a professor." As the son of an Italian immigrant leather craftsman, Amodei says he loves Italian food (explaining his choice of Cotogna) although he regrets he has never learnt the language. "I've always been terrible with languages, absolutely terrible," he laughs. In his youth, Amodei says that he and his sister Daniela, four years his junior, used to dream of doing something good for the world together, like many children do. But even he admits to being surprised that it has worked out that way in real life: Daniela joined her brother in launching Anthropic as a public benefit corporation with the other founders in 2021. They have all pledged to give away 80 per cent of their wealth one day, but are still working on the mechanism for doing so. He credits Daniela with helping to instil incredible trust and loyalty in the Anthropic team. Whereas most start-ups are characterised by high churn, Anthropic's core team has remained remarkably stable, with the longest-serving 17 employees still with the company. Their rapport shines through a video discussion between the seven founders, which I watched before our lunch. One of the founders somewhat sheepishly admits he never wanted to found a company but felt it was his "duty" to ensure AI was developed safely. "That is my attitude as well," Amodei tells me. We have both ordered crab chowder as a starter. Two waiters arrive and with a dramatic flourish pour the soup over the shredded crab and deposit a shared plate of four mini rolls between us. The chowder is spectacularly good, both smooth and zingy. Both of us stick monastically to sparkling water. Amodei says his interest in AI was sparked by reading The Singularity Is Near by the futurist Ray Kurzweil. He says he would not endorse the whole book because it contains some "crazy" and "sci-fi" things, but he credits Kurzweil for his central insight that exponential increases in computing power would eventually lead to human-level AI. "That was my inspiration back in 2005," he says, snaffling his third roll. Working as a postdoc researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine struggling to find biomarkers for cancer, Amodei increasingly realised how AI could be used as a powerful tool to accelerate scientific discovery. He talks admiringly about the achievements of Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder of rival AI research lab Google DeepMind, who in 2024 won a Nobel Prize for helping develop the AlphaFold2 model that has predicted the structure of 200mn proteins. "I'm so excited about what we can do for biology," Amodei says. "AlphaFold was inspiring to me. I think Demis has shown us all the way. And, you know, I want to do something similar." To that end, Anthropic this month acquired the biotech start-up Coefficient Bio for $400mn. Anthropic has also appointed Vas Narasimhan, chief executive of Novartis, to its board. The aim is not to develop drugs themselves but to deploy AI-enabled tools along every stage of the pharmaceuticals pipeline. AI can help develop hypotheses for how diseases can be treated, identify drug candidates and run more efficient clinical trials, he suggests. Amodei acknowledges that there are currently two confusing public narratives about AI, which he has himself partly fuelled. In 2024, Amodei published a long essay called "Machines of Loving Grace" describing the radical upsides of AI. He later tells me that he believes AI could help raise the annual GDP growth rate in the US to 10 per cent a year, or more. But he fears that, for the moment, the negative narrative around the risks of AI is in the ascendant. He himself has spelt out many of AI's dangers in an essay he published this year entitled "The Adolescence of Technology". He has also stoked fears about economic disruption by warning that AI could eliminate about 50 per cent of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, causing unemployment to surge. Amodei insists that AI companies have to face up to the economic disruption the technology will cause. Part of the reason why the negative story is dominant, he suggests, is because the AI industry hasn't yet fully delivered the benefits. Until that happens, people will understandably question the positive story. "Is that just propaganda? Is that just vapourware that's not going to happen? We actually have to make it happen," he says. "We should not deny that the disruption is going to happen. We just have to make the positive effect so large that we have a tool to address the disruption," he says. His mantra is that AI can only "diffuse at the speed of trust"; and trust is currently in short supply. I think we should be thinking about regulating AI the way you regulate cars and aeroplanes This month, Anthropic has galvanised the cyber security world through the carefully controlled release of its Claude Mythos Preview model. The company says Mythos has revealed thousands of so-called zero-day -- previously undiscovered -- cyber vulnerabilities in every operating system and web browser, some of them up to 27 years old. US officials, among others, have since held urgent talks with the country's biggest banks to ensure the security of their cyber networks. Amodei describes how Anthropic has launched Project Glasswing, a collaboration with more than 40 organisations, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, to help find and patch cyber vulnerabilities. But Anthropic is itself facing scrutiny over its data security practices following the leaks of some of its code. Amodei says he suspects open-source models and Chinese developers will be able to replicate Mythos's capabilities within six to 12 months. Belying his reputation as some kind of peacenik, Amodei is keen for democratic governments to exploit the advantages of these powerful AI models to counter authoritarian governments, such as Russia and China, and support allies, including Ukraine and Taiwan. "We're excited for the US government to use this technology," he says, suggesting it could help "dissolve" authoritarian regimes. "But I don't want it turned on our own people or used for undemocratic ends, whether by autocracies or our own governments." Amodei says he cannot discuss the legal case Anthropic is currently pursuing against the Pentagon, contesting its damaging classification as a "supply chain risk". Anthropic had previously objected to some of the military's proposed uses of AI, saying they could "undermine, rather than defend, democratic values" in a narrow set of cases. The Pentagon has insisted that all AI companies should accept "all lawful uses" of their technology. "It's a shame that Dario Amodei is a liar and has a God-complex," tweeted Emil Michael, a top Pentagon official. I suggest it must have been unnerving to have been so publicly attacked by the president of his country. Amodei says he did not take the criticism personally. "All kinds of people say all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. I actually think it's very freeing to have a set of principles and stick to those principles," he says. At this point, our main courses arrive: an asparagus pizza for Amodei and raviolo di ricotta for me. Amodei eats the pizza with his fingers while I dissect my one large envelope of pasta that oozes with tangy cheese. Some commentators have suggested that by developing Mythos, Anthropic has acquired the powers of a nation state. Should the company not therefore be nationalised, they suggest, on security grounds? Amodei counters that he firmly believes in the US principle of checks and balances. It would be dangerous, he argues, for any one company -- or any one government -- to control this technology on its own, which is why Anthropic is collaborating so closely with others. We have an obligation to give back selflessly. And society does not have to venerate us for doing it He says he is a steadfast believer that companies, civil society and the government must work together to address our technological challenges. "I'm a patriot. I'm a believer in this country," he says. "We think we're an important part of helping everyone to figure that out and being a responsible actor that people can trust." Following the release of Mythos, Amodei is all the more convinced of the need for robust regulation of AI. He speculates that similar dangers might arise in biosecurity within the next six to 12 months. "I think we should be thinking about regulating AI the way you regulate cars and aeroplanes," he says. "Everyone realises they have enormous economic value, but they need to be built carefully. If they aren't built right, they can kill you." Amodei has skirmished before with others in the tech industry -- he describes them as "chaotically oriented actors" -- who have sunk money into opposing those candidates for political office favouring state legislation of AI. Anthropic has responded by donating $20mn to the Public First Action Super PAC that is lobbying for stricter safety regulations. He hopes that Project Glasswing could serve as a prototype for how powerful frontier models are released in future. "It's a good first step, but it would be great if we could do something that's more complete," he says. The big model developers should all work together to help create a framework for the mandatory assessment of the technology. He suggests that some third-party organisation, such as the industry-backed non-profit Frontier Model Forum, could set the standards. "Like, does your car have brakes, does it have airbags, does it have seatbelts?" Wouldn't that mean he would have to hold hands with Sam Altman, his great rival who runs OpenAI, I ask. Amodei laughs. At an AI summit in New Delhi earlier this year, Amodei and Altman famously refrained from joining hands onstage, unlike all the other leading participants. Many of Anthropic's team, including Amodei, previously worked at OpenAI but walked out, fearing that Altman was not taking safety issues seriously enough. Amodei is careful not to stir the pot any further with Altman but is hopeful that if sufficient momentum can be built among a core of AI companies, then everyone will feel compelled to come on board. He adds that US administration officials, who have previously resisted overly intrusive regulation, also "understand the moment". "Like, I'm optimistic. These are sophisticated actors that have the incentive to fix things," he says. Amodei does not have time for dessert or coffee. But he becomes the most animated he has been throughout our lunch when concluding with the responsibilities of the rich. He argues that we are living through a new Gilded Age in which a few "incredibly fortunate" billionaires (including himself) have amassed prodigious wealth and have an obligation to be more philanthropic. Some of Anthropic's founders are close to the effective altruism movement that tries to calculate the best way of giving away money. Amodei is particularly critical of those tech barons who bristle at "unfair" criticism in the press and then "buy up the umpire" by acquiring their own media outlets. He refuses to name them but suggests FT readers might guess who they are. "We have an obligation to give back selflessly. And society does not have to venerate us for doing it," he says. "The press could say I torture little puppies and I would still have those obligations." His parting words make clear that Amodei wants to position himself as one of the good guys in the AI debate. But Amodei's tone grates with many Silicon Valley critics, who note how his principles align with Anthropic's commercial interests. The fiercely competitive pressures of shareholder capitalism will also impose a remorseless logic of their own. Still, it may matter hugely to the world whether it is the scientists-turned-entrepreneurs, such as Amodei and Hassabis, who attain human-level AI or the "chaotically oriented actors" who get there first. As the current frontrunner of the AI pack, Amodei is certain to come under increasingly fierce scrutiny. John Thornhill is the FT's innovation editor Find out about our latest stories first -- follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning

OpenAI's $852 billion valuation is under scrutiny from its own investors

Some backers say OpenAI has revised its product roadmap twice in six months and risks losing focus ahead of an IPO expected as early as Q4 2026. OpenAI's new CRO has accused Anthropic of overstating its $30B run rate by $8B through gross accounting on cloud partner revenue. Both companies say they follow standard accounting practices. OpenAI's $852 billion valuation is facing scrutiny from some of its own investors as the company pivots its strategy towards the enterprise market, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The concerns centre on a period of visible strategic turbulence: OpenAI has revised its product roadmap twice in six months, first in response to competitive pressure from Google and then from Anthropic, and has recently dropped several initiatives including its Sora video generation rollout and an 'adult' chatbot. Some investors told the FT the rapid changes could leave the company vulnerable to Anthropic and a resurgent Google, even as it prepares for a potential initial public offering as early as the fourth quarter of 2026. The criticism is pointed. One early backer of OpenAI told the FT: "You have ChatGPT, a 1 billion-user business growing 50-100 per cent a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code? It's a deeply unfocused company." Jai Das, president of Sapphire Ventures, who is not an investor in either OpenAI or Anthropic, went further, describing OpenAI to the FT as "the Netscape of AI", comparing it to the once-dominant browser company that was eventually outflanked by Microsoft and absorbed by AOL. One investor who has backed both companies told that in order to underwrite OpenAI's most recent funding round, they would need to assume an IPO valuation of $1.2 trillion or more. OpenAI's leadership pushed back firmly. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar pointed to the $122 billion fundraise completed last month, described as the largest private round in Silicon Valley history, backed by SoftBank, Amazon, Nvidia, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Thrive Capital, among more than 25 investors, as evidence of investor confidence. "The suggestion that investors are not supportive of our strategy defies the facts," Friar said. "Our raise, the largest in history, was oversubscribed, completed in record time and backed by a broad set of global investors." Separately, Friar told CNBC that enterprise now accounts for 40% of OpenAI's total revenue and is on track to match its consumer business by the end of 2026. OpenAI is also targeting 30 gigawatts of computing capacity by 2030 and told investors last week it had already secured 8 gigawatts, a level it claims Anthropic will not reach until the end of 2027. At the heart of the competitive anxiety is Anthropic's revenue trajectory. The Claude-maker's annualised run rate surged from approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $30 billion by the end of March 2026, driven largely by demand for its coding tools. OpenAI, by its own account, hit $25 billion in annualised revenue in February. The apparent gap prompted a notably aggressive response from OpenAI's new chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser, hired in December 2025 from the role of CEO of Slack. In an internal memo sent to staff on Sunday, Dresser accused Anthropic of overstating its run rate by roughly $8 billion. The accusation turns on a well-documented accounting difference: Anthropic books the full value of revenue generated through its cloud distribution partners, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, on a gross basis, while OpenAI reports its Microsoft revenue share on a net basis, deducting the partner's share before recognising it. Both approaches are permissible under US GAAP. The difference, if Dresser's analysis is correct, would put Anthropic's comparable run rate closer to $22 billion rather than $30 billion. Anthropic disputed the characterisation. One person close to the company told the FT that Anthropic "recognises gross revenue on sales through partners because it is the principal in the transaction and its cloud partners are the distribution channel", a standard justification for gross recognition under accounting rules. Dresser's memo acknowledged that Anthropic's "coding focus gave them an early wedge" in enterprise, but argued that a narrow, developer-focused positioning becomes a liability as AI expands beyond engineering teams. "You do not want to be a single-product company in a platform war," the memo stated. The memo also outlined OpenAI's Q2 priorities: winning the enterprise model layer with a new model codenamed 'Spud', establishing its Frontier agent platform, expanding through a recently announced Amazon partnership, and building a deployment engine called DeployCo.

OpenAI investors question $852bn valuation as strategy shifts

OpenAI's $852bn valuation is under increasing scrutiny from its own backers as the group switches focus to the enterprise market and tackling competition from Anthropic. A recent flurry of deals, initiatives and abandoned projects is designed to reorient the company around a new strategy: defend ChatGPT's dominance among consumers, while taking on Anthropic in the higher-margin market for corporate AI tools. Some OpenAI investors told the FT the changes could leave it vulnerable to Anthropic and a resurgent Google, all while preparing for a blockbuster initial public offering as early as this year. "You have ChatGPT, a 1bn-user business growing 50-100 per cent a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code?" said one early backer of OpenAI. "It's a deeply unfocused company." OpenAI's leadership is bullish, having already successfully repositioned the company multiple times. Chief executive Sam Altman is fresh from securing $122bn last month from more than 25 blue-chip investors including SoftBank, Amazon, Nvidia, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital. "The suggestion that investors are not supportive of our strategy defies the facts," said Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer. "Our . . . raise, the largest in history, was oversubscribed, completed in record time and backed by a broad set of global investors, reflecting strong conviction in both our direction, current business momentum and long-term value." The runaway success of Anthropic has precipitated a strategic rethink. The Claude-maker's annualised revenue surged from $9bn at the end of 2025 to $30bn at the end of March, driven by demand for its coding tools. Anthropic's business appears to have leapfrogged OpenAI, which hit $25bn in annualised revenue in February, though the companies use different accounting methods to book revenue, making direct comparison difficult. Denise Dresser, OpenAI's new chief revenue officer, accused Anthropic of overstating their revenue "by roughly $8bn" by "grossing up [revenue] share with Amazon and Google", in a note to staff on Sunday. Both companies claim to use standard accounting practices. Anthropic "recognises gross revenue on sales through partners because it is the principal in the transaction and its cloud partners are the distribution channel", said one person close to the company. Dresser acknowledged Anthropic's "coding focus gave them an early wedge" in the race for enterprise customers. But, she added, "the market is ours to win". The two start-ups are both losing billions of dollars each year, spending aggressively on computing power to train and run models. One investor who has backed both companies said that in order to underwrite an investment in OpenAI's recent round, they would have to assume an IPO valuation of $1.2tn or more. That has become harder to justify given the cheaper proposition of buying into Anthropic, most recently valued at $380bn. The person added OpenAI risked being left "in no man's land". Data from secondary marketplaces that trade proxies for both companies' stock suggests demand is higher for Anthropic, and, for the first time, buyers are placing a premium on the start-up over OpenAI. "There's room for both but there is fundamentally a number 1 and a number 2 dynamic and the 1 will win disproportionately. We picked. We invested a lot into Anthropic," said Roy Luo, a partner at Iconiq Capital, which has invested over $1bn into Anthropic and owns a smaller stake in OpenAI. "Anthropic are enjoying their time in the sun, and we're being congratulated," he added. "But everyone was saying the same to OpenAI's early investors last year." OpenAI still retains a lead among consumer users. Having beaten its rivals to launch ChatGPT in November 2022, it catalysed the creation of a new market for data centre financing, converted into a for-profit enterprise and committed hundreds of billions to secure computing power. But Altman issued a "code red" late last year imploring staff to focus on core business. Last month, Fidji Simo, former Instacart chief and OpenAI's CEO of applications, who is off on medical leave, urged employees to drop "side quests". Two weeks later the company spent in the "low hundreds of millions of dollars" on tech talk show TBPN. An OpenAI executive said the show was not a side quest because it doesn't drain computing resources. "I don't get it frankly, it doesn't make any sense to me," said an OpenAI investor of the TBPN acquisition. "It's a distraction and it irks me." Disney's planned investment of $1bn evaporated as OpenAI shuttered the video generation service Sora. Microsoft has indicated it will take legal action if OpenAI's new $50bn partnership with Amazon infringes on its exclusive cloud deal with the company. Ambitions around Stargate, OpenAI's $500bn data centre effort announced in the White House last year, have also shifted. Plans to develop a $30bn data centre in the UK and extend a site in Abilene, Texas, have both been ditched. A $100bn deal with Nvidia has also been substantially pared back. Expansion continues in other areas. OpenAI plans to nearly double its headcount to 8,000 by the end of the year, at which point it expects to generate half of its revenue from businesses, up from about 40 per cent today. On Monday, OpenAI said it had signed a lease for a new permanent office in London next year, where it wants to form the largest research hub outside the US. It also spent last year inking massive deals to secure computing resources -- an area where it has a clear advantage over Anthropic. The company told investors last week that it had secured access to 8 gigawatts of computing capacity -- a milestone OpenAI claims that Anthropic will not hit until the end of 2027 -- as it aims to secure 30GW by the end of 2030. Anthropic has faced outages and power constraints. Meanwhile, according to a person involved in OpenAI's infrastructure efforts, "even if our model is less good, we can just serve it". Anthropic has not shared its plans to add computing power, but chief financial officer Krishna Rao said this month the company would take a "disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure". OpenAI is reallocating its own computing resources. As well as dropping Sora, it has also mothballed an "adult" chatbot. Instead, its focus has switched to selling its coding tool, Codex, to businesses. Multiple people familiar with the company's strategy said Codex might eventually take precedence over ChatGPT, as staff prioritise making the software more accessible for non-technical users. "It's just a much higher margin business and moving compute [computing resources] from consumer to enterprise is trivial," said the person who has worked on OpenAI's efforts to access computing resources. "The company was doing too many things, it had too many bets. It's about refocusing the business around a couple of core bets," said another major investor in the group. "That's it. You can't as a company compete on 30 different fronts." Others see frequent switches of approach as a sign of strategic drift. Jai Das, president of investment firm Sapphire Ventures, described OpenAI as "the Netscape of AI", referring to the once dominant internet company before being outstripped by Microsoft and acquired by AOL. Das is not an investor in either OpenAI or Anthropic. Friar said the company still had the support of its investors given that OpenAI just closed the biggest private fundraising of all time. The CFO said the $122bn raising "gives us a lot of flexibility at this moment in time. I view my job as always [to create] max flexibility, max optionality for the company, because then we can make more strategic decisions." Data visualisation by Clara Murray, additional reporting by Cristina Criddle

Anthropic's fast ascent: The strategy behind an $800 billion valuation

The AI firm Anthropic has emerged as a dominant force in the global technology sector, attracting investor interest that values the company at approximately $800 billion (€678.3bn), but what is behind the success? Anthropic's recent financial trajectory has stunned market observers, with venture capital offers now placing the firm's value at $800 billion (€678.3bn), on par with its main rival OpenAI. According to various reports, the company has seen its private valuation more than double in a matter of months, supported by a revenue run-rate that has reportedly climbed to $30 billion (€25.4bn). As the San Francisco-based AI developer prepares for a potential IPO, rumoured to happen as early as next autumn, it finds itself at the centre of an industry-wide debate regarding the balance between rapid growth and responsible scaling. The company's latest model, Mythos, has become the focal point of this tension, as its capabilities have drawn both praise for efficiency and warnings from high-profile leaders regarding security risks. In a high-level convergence of financial oversight and national security, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reportedly convened an urgent and closed-door meeting with the chief executives of the nation's major banks last week in Washington. The summit, organized on short notice, was intended to warn Wall Street leadership about the profound systemic risks posed by Anthropic's new Mythos model. Before Mythos, the company already found itself in a delicate position regarding its relationship with the state as it resisted allowing the US Department of War to use its models for offensive military purposes. The stance cost the firm lucrative contracts with the Pentagon but that did not stop Anthropic from successfully expanding its business. The driving force behind this $800 billion (€678.3bn) figure is a fundamental transition in how Anthropic approaches the market. While its early years were defined by a research-heavy, safety-first philosophy, the current growth is being propelled by aggressive enterprise adoption. Large-scale corporations are increasingly turning to Anthropic's Claude models to automate complex internal processes, a trend that has significantly boosted the firm's bottom line. Unlike competitors such as OpenAI that have sought broad consumer appeal, Anthropic has focused on becoming the primary infrastructure for professional and technical workflows. Speaking to Euronews, Ben Barringer, head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot, suggests that this specific focus is the reason the market is willing to accept such high premiums in valuing Anthropic. "Anthropic differs from OpenAI in that it looks to sell to enterprises more than it does to the end consumer, so the business models are very different," Barringer noted. In a way, a comparison can be drawn between Anthropic today and Microsoft last century, when software businesses first appeared, as they both focus on enterprise applications. Anthropic is aiming for their AI models to be just as used by companies, and difficult to switch away from, as the Microsoft Office suite is currently for firms. This strategy appears to be insulating the company from the volatility and added competition often seen in more consumer-facing tech. Barringer further highlighted to Euronews that the valuation is "primarily down to its product set, rather than the values it is looking to exude," noting that the proliferation of AI agents has provided a clear path to sustainable income. By introducing consumption charges for its most intensive enterprise users, the company has demonstrated a clear ability to monetise its most advanced intellectual property. While the financial metrics are strong, the technological capabilities of the new Mythos model have introduced new complexities. Mythos is touted as a significant leap forward in autonomous reasoning, but its power has raised alarms in the financial sector. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has voiced concerns regarding the potential misuse of such advanced systems suggesting that the capabilities of Mythos, particularly in identifying software vulnerabilities, could potentially be used to orchestrate sophisticated cyber-attacks against global banking infrastructure. This "security paradox" is at the heart of Anthropic's current dilemma. The model is reportedly so effective at finding flaws in code that it is a transformative tool for cybersecurity, but in the wrong hands, those same features could be catastrophic. This has led the company to implement strict access controls, a move that aligns with its safety-first branding but complicates its relationship with various stakeholders. The firm is essentially attempting to sell its most powerful tool while simultaneously restricting how it can be used, a strategy that will certainly be under intense scrutiny during a future IPO roadshow. Anthropic's ethical stance has also led to a standoff with the US Department of War. Reports indicate that the company has resisted pressure to allow its most advanced models to be used for offensive military operations, citing its "Constitutional AI" guidelines. This stance has created a unique dynamic where the company is arguably the most valuable AI startup in the world while being at odds with one of the world's largest potential customers, the Pentagon. This friction highlights the firm's commitment to its founding principles, even at the cost of lucrative government contracts. However, this perceived friction does not seem to have dampened investor enthusiasm for the rumoured IPO. The market is currently experiencing a wave of momentum, with other major players like SpaceX also looking toward public listings. Barringer noted that Anthropic may want to "take advantage of the momentum" in a crowded field of high-profile offerings. An IPO would provide the necessary capital to sustain the massive costs associated with training the current and next generation of AI models. As the company moves toward the final quarter of 2026, the question remains whether it can satisfy the relentless growth demands of public shareholders while maintaining the strict safety boundaries that define its corporate identity.

Anthropic draws VC interest at up to $800 billion valuation, Business Insider reports

Anthropic has so far resisted overtures from investors for a new round of funding, according to a Bloomberg News report. The reports also come weeks ⁠after Anthropic announced a power new model named Mythos earlier this month, describing it as its "most capable yet for coding and agentic tasks," referring to the model's ability to act autonomously. Anthropic has received multiple offers from venture capital firms in recent weeks to invest in the Claude maker at valuations as high as $800 billion, more than double its current ⁠value, ⁠Business Insider reported on Tuesday, citing sources. Anthropic has so far resisted overtures from investors for a new round of funding, according to a Bloomberg News report on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Anthropic did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests ⁠for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify both reports. In February, Anthropic raised $30 billion in a ⁠funding round that valued it at $380 billion amid massive investor interest in the startup and the broader AI industry. The firm is also reportedly exploring an IPO as early as this year. Demand for its AI model Claude has accelerated in 2026, with the startup's run-rate revenue now surpassing $30 billion, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025. The reports also come weeks ⁠after Anthropic announced a power new model named Mythos earlier this month, describing it as its "most capable yet for coding and agentic tasks," referring to the model's ability to act autonomously. Its advanced coding capabilities could give it unprecedented ability to spot and exploit cybersecurity flaws, experts say.

Anthropic Nears OpenAI Territory With Reported $800 Billion Valuation Chatter As Explosive Claude Growth

Anthropic has reportedly received multiple unsolicited investment offers from venture capital firms valuing the company at as much as $800 billion. Investor Frenzy Drives $800B Valuation Buzz Anthropic did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments. The company was last officially valued at about $380 billion in a February funding round backed by global investors. That figure is still under half of the roughly $852 billion valuation ChatGPT-parent OpenAI reached in its latest funding round last month. The Claude-parent's valuation has climbed to $688 billion on Caplight, a secondary marketplace for trading shares of private companies, marking a 75% surge over the past three months, the report noted. Claude Growth Powers Revenue Surge A major driver of this enthusiasm is Anthropic's flagship AI model, Claude. Demand for its tools -- particularly coding-focused capabilities -- has accelerated sharply in 2026. The company's annualized revenue has surged past $30 billion, up from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. Mythos Raises Stakes -- And Concerns Anthropic, earlier this month, also introduced Mythos, its most advanced AI model to date, designed for complex coding and autonomous, agent-like tasks. However, the company has not released it widely, citing concerns over potential misuse, including cybersecurity threats. Expansion Across Enterprise And Infrastructure At the same time, the company is reportedly exploring in-house chip development, signaling ambitions to control more of the AI technology stack. Palantir Comparison Sparks Debate However, analysts such as Dan Ives argue the two operate in different segments, with Palantir focused on enterprise data platforms rather than foundational AI models. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo Courtesy: gguy on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

OpenAI Backers Question Valuation Amid Anthropic Competition | PYMNTS.com

As the Financial Times (FT) reported Tuesday (April 14), this growing scrutiny comes amid OpenAI's new focus on enterprise customers and dealing with competition from rival artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic. In the past few months, OpenAI has made a series of moves to further a new strategy, one that involves sustaining ChatGPT's place as the dominant consumer AI product, while also competing with Anthropic for corporate customers. However, some OpenAI investors say these changes could leave the company vulnerable to Anthropic and Google as it prepares to go public. "You have ChatGPT, a 1 billion-user business growing 50-100 per cent a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code?" one early investor in OpenAI told the FT. "It's a deeply unfocused company." The report added that OpenAI leadership remains confident, having already gone through numerous successful pivots. CEO Sam Altman last month landed $122 billion in funding from high-profile investors that included SoftBank, Amazon and Nvidia. "The suggestion that investors are not supportive of our strategy defies the facts," said Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer. "Our . . . raise, the largest in history, was oversubscribed, completed in record time and backed by a broad set of global investors, reflecting strong conviction in both our direction, current business momentum and long-term value." The report also includes a comment from an investor who has backed both OpenAI and Anthripic, who said that to underwrite an investment in OpenAI's recent round, they would have to assume an IPO valuation of at least $1.2 trillion. That has become harder to defend considering the cheaper proposition of buying into Anthropic, most recently valued at $380 billion, the FT said. The investor added that OpenAI was in danger of being left "in no man's land." Writing about competition between the various AI platforms last week, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster argued that this race will be determined more by how user habits are formed than by product releases, and by "whether the platforms understand that they aren't just competing for users, but for the order in which those users show up at their prompt." "The consumer who opens ChatGPT before she's had her coffee isn't likely to be pulled away by a better feature set alone," Webster added. "If she changes her behavior at all, it will be because another model earns a specific role in her routine."

Can Anthropic Lead IPO Race Over OpenAI With an $800 Billion Valuation Edge?

Anthropic is moving closer to a possible public listing as private-market valuation talk rises to as much as $800 billion. At the same time, OpenAI remains the other company most closely watched in the same race. Investors are now looking at revenue growth, enterprise demand, IPO readiness, and the cost of running large AI systems. Neither company has confirmed a final IPO date. However, market attention has moved beyond model launches and product demos. The focus is now on which company can show scale, stronger business demand, and a more structured path to the . A listing by either company would mark a major step for the AI sector. For now, Anthropic has drawn extra attention because of its recent valuation jump and its rising revenue. OpenAI, however, remains close in size and still holds a large position in the market.

OpenAI's $852 bln valuation faces scrutiny amid strategy shift, FT reports By Investing.com

Investing.com-- OpenAI's lofty valuation is facing growing scrutiny from some of its own investors as the company pivots strategy and intensifies competition in the artificial intelligence sector, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing investors. The group, valued at about $852 billion, is increasingly shifting focus toward enterprise customers while aiming to defend the dominance of its ChatGPT platform among consumers, even as it faces rising pressure from rival Anthropic, according to the FT report. Get real-time updates on market-moving news with InvestingPro Some investors told the FT that the strategic repositioning could leave OpenAI exposed, particularly as it prepares for a potential initial public offering as early as this year. Concerns have also been raised over what one early backer described as a lack of focus, given the company's strong consumer growth, the report said. The shift comes as Anthropic's annualised revenue surged to about $30 billion by March, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025, driven by demand for its coding tools. By comparison, OpenAI reached roughly $25 billion in annualised revenue in February, though accounting differences make direct comparisons difficult, the FT reported. OpenAI executives defended the strategy, with finance chief Sarah Friar saying the company's recent $122 billion funding round reflected strong investor backing. Still, some investors warned that intensifying competition and evolving priorities could complicate OpenAI's growth trajectory, the report added.