The media reports that the startup Anthropic, which operates in the sphere of artificial intelligence, is currently negotiating a $750 million funding raise.
According to insiders, the mentioned company is evaluated at $18.4 billion. These data were provided by persons who were aware of the startup’s intentions, which were not recorded in the public space. In this case, the company is committed to continuing a series of investments in the development of a chatbot that has a high level of security and is a digital product created following the principles of responsible artificial intelligence.
The potential deal has not yet gone all the way through standard procedural actions to completion. The fundraising is led by Silicon Valley company Menlo Ventures. This is reported by the media with reference to persons who have used the right of anonymity because an issue is being considered, which is currently being discussed only in the corporate space.
The startup did not provide any information in response to a request from journalists about new investments. Menlo Ventures also did not disclose anything about the financing.
Anthropic is currently one of the most successful startups in the sphere of artificial intelligence in terms of the amount of investment received. In October, Google committed to financial support for the company. The tech giant will provide the startup with $2 billion in investment funds. Also in September, Amazon announced its readiness to allocate up to $4 billion in funding for the development of Antrophic.
Both the specified deals were structured as convertible bonds. In this case, it means the type of debt that is converted into equity in the next round of startup financing.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees. These specialists stopped interacting with the developer of the world’s most popular artificial intelligence-based chatbot called ChatGPT due to disagreements regarding business strategy. Anthropic has already created a similar digital product with machine intelligence called Claude. This chatbot can handle tasks involving the work of the mind, such as summarizing, searching for information corresponding to a user’s query, answering questions, and coding.
As part of its market positioning, Anthropic focuses on the fact that one of the main priorities in the company’s value system is to ensure a high level of security. This means that the startup is taking measures to prevent potential harm, the source of which may be artificial intelligence tools.
Anthropic was registered as a so-called public benefit corporation. This startup status provides for steps aimed at realizing the desire to create maximum good for consumers of products based on artificial intelligence. The company is partially managed by the so-called Long-Term Benefit Trust, which consists of five financially disinterested members, separately from the corporate board.
Also this year, Anthropic signed a major cloud agreement with Google. As part of this collaboration, the startup will use a set of computer services from the technology giant. The media, citing insiders who are aware of the details of the agreement, report that the deal provides for large financial injections into Antrophic from Google compared to the above-mentioned October investments. This cooperation has been designed for several years.
As part of the partnership agreement with Amazon, Anthropic will use AWS cloud computing services and chips for two years. For cloud service providers, investing in promising startups has already become something of a standard practice. From the point of view of commercial and technological interest, interaction with developers forming the so-called new wave of artificial intelligence is beneficial. Huge computing resources are required for the functioning of large machine intelligence systems. Experts say that companies developing products based on digital intelligence will become the main customers of cloud services.
PitchBook data indicates that Anthropic value is at about $5 billion. This figure is inconsistent with the above-mentioned insider claims of value at $18 billion. Currently, the startup is fully competing with OpenAI, in which Microsoft has invested $10 billion.
