AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funding Valuing It at $60 Billion
Amazon-backed OpenAI rival was valued at $18 billion last year
Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, making it the latest artificial-intelligence startup to seize upon investor euphoria for the technology.
The funding round is being led by the venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, people familiar with the matter said. The $60 billion valuation includes the money Anthropic plans to raise in the round.
The deal would make Anthropic the fifth-most valuable U.S. startup after SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks, according to data provider CB Insights. It was valued last year at $18 billion in a round led by Menlo Ventures.
There has been a dealmaking frenzy among AI companies since OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in an October round that nearly doubled its value to $157 billion.
Two other startups, Elon Musk’s xAI and Perplexity, subsequently raised money at substantially increased valuations.
Investors are excited about the potential of generative AI to transform how people work and live and largely unconcerned that most AI startups are losing money because of the high costs of the technology and intense competition.
Tech giants including Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google are also investing billions to build their own AI capabilities.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees. Its main product is a chatbot called Claude that is popular among programmers and businesses, but trails ChatGPT among everyday users of the technology.
The company has distinguished itself for taking a public stance in favor of robust safety testing for its technology out of concern AI could be misused or unintentionally cause catastrophic harm to humanity.
Much of Anthropic’s funding to date has come from its close partner Amazon AMZN -2.02%decrease; red down pointing triangle, which committed $4 billion to the startup in November, bringing its total investment since 2023 to $8 billion. Amazon’s November investment was a convertible note, meaning it will translate to equity at the valuation set in the current round.
Anthropic develops and operates its technology in data centers operated by Amazon and Google, which has also invested billions of dollars in the startup.
The startup’s annualized revenue—an extrapolation of the next 12 months’ revenue based on recent sales—recently hit about $875 million, one of the knowledgeable people said. Most of that has come from sales to businesses.
OpenAI told investors when closing its October round that it expected to generate $3.7 billion in revenue last year, in large part from sales of the premium version of ChatGPT to consumers.