Bloomberg reports that the AI company Anthropic is actively preparing for a new funding round worth between $3 billion and $5 billion. Once this funding is secured, the company's valuation is expected to surge to $170 billion, nearly three times its valuation of $61.5 billion in March this year. The lead investor in this round is Iconiq Capital, which is expected to invest about $1 billion. Additionally, investors such as Amazon, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Alkeon Capital Management are also actively negotiating.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees, dedicated to developing "safe and reliable large language models." In March of this year, the company completed a $3.5 billion funding round led by Lightspeed, with a valuation of $61.5 billion at that time. However, as the new funding progresses, Anthropic's performance has continued to rise. Its annual recurring revenue (ARR) increased from $4 billion to about $5 billion in July, and is expected to reach $9 billion by the end of the year.
Currently, with the intensifying competition in large model development and the continuous growth in computing power demand, the need for funds for Anthropic is increasing. The company is discussing the criteria for selecting funding sources. In an internal memo to employees, CEO Dario Amodei mentioned that although there are concerns about the background of certain sovereign wealth funds, idealized screening seems impractical during a capital-intensive development phase. He said, "Although the idea that 'bad people should not benefit from our success' is correct, it is difficult to use this as a basis for business decisions."
Notably, the details of the financing are still being finalized, and the possibility of introducing a second lead investor in the future cannot be ruled out. At the same time, Anthropic is accelerating its intense competition with OpenAI and xAI, Musk's company. Both of these companies have also received significant funding. Currently, OpenAI's valuation is approximately $300 billion, while xAI is seeking a valuation of up to $200 billion.