Anthropic, the maker of the Claude family of chatbots, has become the world's most valuable artificial intelligence startup, reaching a $965 billion valuation after raising $65 billion from private investors in a funding round led by Altimeter Capital, Greenoaks, Dragoneer and Sequoia Capital.
This valuation surpasses that of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which attracted an $852 billion valuation in its last fundraising round in March. Anthropic is led by CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei.
“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens,” said Anthropic's Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao in a statement.
Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner hailed the adoption of Claude among the “world’s most demanding organisations” as evidence of Anthropic’s command in the field. “This momentum positions Anthropic to lead the next phase of AI innovation and capture the enormous opportunity ahead,” Gerstner said.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, Anthropic has rapidly emerged as a leading player in Silicon Valley’s scramble to dominate AI. Claude, first launched in 2023, is among the most popular AI models worldwide, receiving more than 1 million new sign-ups each day as of March.
Despite its rapid success, Anthropic has faced challenges, notably a high-profile dispute with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has labeled the firm a “supply chain risk” over its refusal to allow unrestricted access to its tools for military purposes.
On Thursday, Anthropic unveiled its latest iteration of Claude, Opus 4.8, calling it a “modest but tangible improvement” on its predecessor.
Anthropic, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX are all expected to go public in the near future in what are expected to be among the biggest initial public offerings in history.
Jay R Ritter, an emeritus professor at the University of Florida who specializes in IPOs, said Anthropic has generated a lot of market excitement due to its widespread use by companies for software coding. “This is a big market where apparently Anthropic has the best product,” Ritter told Al Jazeera. He noted that the increase in valuation over a short period is unprecedented for a startup, though publicly traded tech companies like SK Hynix, Nvidia, and Alphabet have seen even bigger increases in absolute terms.
While it remains to be seen whether massive AI investments are creating a bubble, Ritter said the handful of successful firms that are likely to emerge could see enormous profits. “Nobody wants to use the eighth best product, so these companies are either one of the handful of successful firms, or they will have a zero market share,” he said.
Source: www.aljazeera.com