AI startup Anthropic to boost $2 billion at $60 billion valuation, sources say

By Anna Tong, Krystal Hu and Akash Sriram

(Reuters) -AI startup Anthropic is close to a deal to boost a further $2 billion at a value that values the corporate at $60 billion, sources stated, months after its $4 billion funding from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Enterprise capital agency Lightspeed Enterprise Companions is main the funding spherical, in line with the sources, who requested anonymity to debate non-public issues.

The brand new funding, $6 billion in complete, will mark a bounce in valuation for Anthropic, a serious competitor of OpenAI within the basis mannequin house. Anthropic was valued at round $18 billion in a fundraise led by Menlo Ventures final yr.

Anthropic declined to remark. The Wall Avenue Journal first reported the funding on Tuesday.

Amazon late final yr doubled its funding within the startup to $8 billion, because the e-commerce large went up in opposition to Large Tech rivals in a race to capitalize on generative AI know-how. The most recent $4 billion issued to Amazon in convertible notes might be transformed into fairness via this spherical.

Anthropic, whose annualized income hit about $875 million, sells entry to its fashions instantly and thru third-party cloud providers together with Amazon Internet Providers. The massive language fashions growth requires costly computing, in addition to prime skills.

Co-founded by former OpenAI executives and siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, San Francisco-based Anthropic additionally obtained $2 billion funding from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in 2023.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI triggered an AI arms race after it launched ChatGPT in November 2022. The rising recognition of the corporate and new product launches helped it shut a $6.6 billion funding spherical in October, doubtlessly taking its valuation to $157 billion.

With outsized funding rounds by firms resembling Anthropic and xAI, AI startups have accounted for practically half of the enterprise capital greenback raised within the U.S. final yr, in line with PitchBook knowledge.