Anthropic has finalized a megaround of funding, securing $3.5 billion at a valuation of $61.5 billion, according to a statement to Bloomberg. This funding solidifies Anthropic’s status as one of the largest startups globally, amid rapidly growing business metrics.
Anthropic’s annual revenue run rate was approximately $1 billion at the end of last year and has seen a 30% increase so far in 2023, as reported by an anonymous source familiar with the matter. The company declined to comment on its sales figures, but CNBC noted its projections for 2024 revenue earlier.
Anthropic secures $3.5 billion funding, reaches $61.5 billion valuation
The financing round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, which contributed $1 billion. Other notable investors included General Catalyst, Jane Street, and Fidelity Management & Research Company, with existing supporters such as Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating. Lightspeed co-founder Ravi Mhatre expressed excitement for the exponential growth in AI capabilities since Anthropic’s inception.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has gained recognition for its AI safety and reliability focus, particularly through its large language model, Claude. Initially seeking to raise $2 billion, Anthropic exceeded that amount in an oversubscribed funding round. The new investment is aimed at developing next-generation AI systems, enhancing computing capacity, and advancing research in safety. Additionally, Anthropic plans to bolster its international presence, specifically in Asia and Europe.
Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s Chief Financial Officer, stated that the investment would facilitate the creation of more intelligent AI systems that expand human capabilities, while also enhancing understanding of such systems. He noted that these efforts are yielding significant results for customers as both enterprise and consumer usage spikes.
Previously, Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic in November, bringing its total stake to $8 billion, while Google contributed $1 billion in January, building on its earlier investments. Anthropics’ technology contributes to Amazon’s new AI-enhanced Alexa assistant, Alexa+.
In a recent development, Anthropic launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code, which enhances its coding capabilities. With this funding, the company aims to deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment while maintaining rapid momentum in product and commercial innovation.
Businesses across various sectors, including startups like Cursor and Codeium, as well as large corporations like Zoom, Snowflake, and Pfizer, are utilizing Claude to enhance their operations. For instance, Replit integrated Claude into its “Agent” feature to convert natural language into code, resulting in a tenfold revenue increase, while Novo Nordisk has significantly reduced clinical report writing time using Claude.
Furthermore, Anthropic emphasizes its commitment to improving AI’s role in driving human progress and advancing its understanding of frontier AI systems. The Series E round was backed by multiple investors, including Salesforce Ventures, Cisco Investments, and D1 Capital Partners, among others.
The generative AI market, involving companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, is projected to exceed $1 trillion in revenue over the next decade. Amazon Web Services has become Anthropic’s primary cloud service and training partner, utilizing its specialized chips for model training and deployment.
Sustaining its technology development, Anthropic has recently achieved capabilities allowing its AI agents to complete complex tasks on computers, mimicking human interactions, and enhancing automation across multiple applications.
Featured image credit: Anthropic
