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Anthropic is set to raise about $20bn from venture capitalists and other investors, double the amount it had targeted in a sign of surging investor enthusiasm for the high-profile AI start-up.
The fundraising deal, which is close to being finalised, would value the company at $350bn, said people familiar with the matter. The upsized transaction underscores Anthropic’s growing momentum as chief rival to the ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Anthropic had been in talks to raise about $10bn from investors to finance its expansion plans; however, that amount has since doubled because of the high level of investor demand to back the company.
The start-up received interest totalling five to six times the original target, said one investor in the round. Anthropic will lock in an initial $10bn to $15bn from investors as early as Tuesday, before completing the raise in the coming weeks, the people said.
Investors view Anthropic as an attractive company to back given its focus on providing AI for businesses, the stability of its leadership and popularity of its coding tool Claude Code.
Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and US investor Coatue are leading the deal. Sequoia Capital is also making a big investment in Anthropic as part of the round, the FT previously reported.
Existing backers including Iconiq Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, G Squared and Factorial Funds are also expected to participate in the round, said people with knowledge of the deal.
As part of the fundraising discussions, and in addition to the $20bn from financial groups, tech groups Microsoft and Nvidia have also committed to invest a total of up to $15bn into the company.
The fundraising talks come alongside Anthropic’s preparations for a potential initial public offering that could come this year.
The company has hired the law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin preparatory work and held preliminary conversations with banks about a public listing.
Anthropic has become a leading developer of AI systems, rivalling the likes of Google and OpenAI to create the most advanced models. Its valuation has skyrocketed in the past year to become one of the world’s most valuable private companies.
Chief executive Dario Amodei was an early employee at OpenAI but left in 2020 to co-found Anthropic after clashing with OpenAI’s boss Sam Altman over its direction and AI guardrails.
Amodei on Monday published a 20,000-word essay arguing humanity “needs to wake up” to the potentially catastrophic risks posed by powerful AI systems in the years to come.
“Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it,” he wrote, in a stark warning that safeguards around AI are inadequate.
Anthropic declined to comment.
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