Anthropic, a competitor to OpenAI, has successfully completed a $3.5 billion funding round, valuing the company at $61.5 billion. This significant investment was led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, which contributed $1 billion. Other notable investors include General Catalyst, Jane Street, and Fidelity, with existing investors like Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also increasing their stakes.
The startup plans to utilize the new funds to advance the development of next-generation artificial intelligence systems. Their focus includes expanding computational capabilities, enhancing mechanism interpretability and alignment research, and accelerating international expansion in Asia and Europe.
Founded in 2021, Anthropic's team mainly comprises former employees of OpenAI, including ex-Vice President of Research Dario Amodei and GPT-3 core member Tom Brown. In March 2023, Anthropic launched its large language model, Claude, which is considered a major competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT. While many traditional tech giants have entered this field, Anthropic has secured substantial support from Amazon.
Anthropic's higher valuation coincides with its rapid business growth. The company's annual revenue reached approximately $1 billion at the end of last year, marking a tenfold increase. Revenue primarily comes from enterprise sales, serving startups like Cursor, Codeium, and Replit, as well as major corporations such as Zoom, Snowflake, Pfizer, Reuters, and Novo Nordisk.
Ravi Mhatre, co-founder of Lightspeed, acknowledged Anthropic's dedication to enterprise services, cutting-edge development, and safety, which are driving fundamental changes in the AI sector. The startup's technology now powers Amazon's Alexa+, bringing Claude to millions of homes and Prime members.
Krishna Rao, Anthropic's CFO, stated that the latest investment will help develop more intelligent AI systems, enhancing human capabilities. Continuous progress in model training has led to breakthroughs in intelligence and expertise.
In November last year, Amazon announced an additional $4 billion investment in Anthropic, raising its total investment to $8 billion and maintaining its position as a minority shareholder. In October, Anthropic enhanced its R&D efforts, announcing that its AI agents could perform complex tasks on computers, laying the foundation for smarter workflows.
