Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI model, has reportedly agreed to terms for a massive $30 billion fundraising round that would value the company at approximately $900 billion, according to the Financial Times. If completed, the deal would make Anthropic the world's most valuable artificial intelligence startup, surpassing rival OpenAI.
The funding round, which could close as early as this month, is expected to be co-led by Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter Capital, each contributing at least $2 billion. Other investors are still in discussions to cover the remaining amount.
Anthropic's projected annualized revenue has surged to over $45 billion, a significant leap from about $9 billion at the end of last year. This growth underscores the company's rapid expansion in the AI market, particularly in enterprise and developer segments.
The deal comes amid a shifting landscape where investors are prioritizing revenue, user adoption, and compute access over mere model demonstrations. Anthropic's valuation would eclipse OpenAI's $852 billion valuation from a March funding round, which some investors have begun to question as OpenAI intensifies its focus on enterprise and coding products.
While OpenAI's ChatGPT still commands a massive consumer audience of around 900 million weekly users, Anthropic has made significant inroads in business and developer circles. Recent data from The Wall Street Journal indicates that Anthropic has surpassed OpenAI on certain enterprise adoption metrics and U.S. app downloads, signaling a shift in the competitive dynamics beyond consumer chatbots.
Anthropic is actively working to demonstrate real-world deployment of its technology. On Thursday, the company announced an expanded partnership with PwC, which will deploy Claude Code and Cowork across its U.S. teams, establish a joint Center of Excellence, and train 30,000 professionals for certification. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei estimated the potential reach at "hundreds of thousands" of PwC employees.
Infrastructure remains a critical challenge. Last month, Amazon announced that Anthropic had committed to spending over $100 billion over a decade on AWS technology, securing up to 5 gigawatts of Trainium chip power. Amazon also made an immediate $5 billion investment, with an additional $20 billion possible upon meeting certain milestones.
Anthropic is also positioning its growth within a broader discussion about AI's societal impact. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Anthropic and the Gates Foundation have committed $200 million over four years to support AI-driven public goods in health and education. Elizabeth Kelly, who leads Anthropic's beneficial deployments team, called the initiative "core" to the company's mission.
Despite the impressive numbers, the deal is not yet finalized. Bloomberg noted that talks are still in flux, with no term sheet signed, and details could shift before formalization. Factors such as cloud expenses, chip availability, revenue timing, and investor sentiment could all affect the final outcome.
Anthropic's pitch to investors is clear: it has built a safety-focused AI brand that can be positioned as a business software bet, with enterprise deals, developer tools, and limited compute resources. A $900 billion private valuation would reflect that narrative, but the company must still demonstrate that demand for Claude is strong enough to justify the numbers.
