Anthropic in Advanced Talks to Buy Developer Tool Startup in First Acquisition
The Takeaway
- Anthropic in advanced talks to acquire developer tool startup Bun
- Bun acquisition will enhance Claude Code agent performance and stability
- Claude Code agent achieved $1 billion in annualized revenue last month.
Anthropic is in advanced discussions to buy Bun, a maker of software used to run and manage code more efficiently, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. The artificial intelligence company is in talks to pay in the low hundreds of millions of dollars for the startup, which would be Anthropic’s first acquisition, according to the person.
The acquisition would give Anthropic, which already has been using Bun for over six months, direct access to the startup’s expertise and further boost the performance and stability of its coding agent Claude Code. The software would also help business customers set up Claude Code more efficiently. Annualized revenue from the agent hit $1 billion last month, according to the person.
Anthropic will hire seven Bun employees and will acquire its technology, which those employees will continue to run. Previously Anthropic has made deals known as acqui-hires, hiring most of a startup’s researchers and engineers without absorbing their technology. That strategy contrasted with its rival OpenAI, which has spent more than $6.4 billion in stock to buy at least three startups over the last 18 months. The terms of Anthropic’s deal for Bun couldn’t be learned.
In recent months Anthropic has told investment banks that it was planning to make more acquisitions to strengthen its capabilities in coding-related tasks, which makes up the majority of its revenue. It would also focus on AI for specific industries, such as financial services and healthcare.
Anthropic, which was valued at $170 billion in a September funding round led by Iconiq Capital, is in a heated race with OpenAI and Microsoft to sell AI to businesses. It makes 80% of its revenue from selling access to its AI models to app developers such as legal AI startup Harvey and Cursor-maker Anysphere. In February it launched Claude Code to some customers. It can be accessed as part of a Claude chatbot subscription and enterprise plans.
Meanwhile, Anthropic has been adding to its corporate development staff under CFO Krishna Rao, who joined in May last year. This group of former bankers and venture capitalists have told outside bankers the company was interested in doing small acquisitions that could expand the company’s ability to provide software to developers, such as tools that test code for bugs or help with designing software.
Bun was founded by former Stripe engineer Jarred Sumner in 2021, according to his LinkedIn. A year later, he raised $7 million in a round led by Kleiner Perkins. He later raised a previously undisclosed $19 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures.
The small startup’s software combines several coding tasks—installing, building, running and testing code—into a single tool. Users don’t have to install different programs or manage other external software. It supports popular programming languages JavaScript and TypeScript, both languages that underpin Claude Code. It says X and coding assistants Lovable and Replit use the software.
Bun has more than seven million monthly downloads and does not generate revenue, according to the person. It will continue to be open-sourced, the person said.