Anthropic overtakes OpenAI in valuation, nears $1T

AI startup Anthropic raised fresh funding that pushed its valuation to $965 billion, more than double its previous value and higher than rival OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. 

The Claude bot company has become one of the fastest-growing firms in Silicon Valley as the AI race intensifies.

The funding round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, and includes $15 billion in previous commitments, out of which $5 billion is from Amazon.

Anthropic’s value has nearly tripled since February, when it was worth $380 billion.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei, the startup quickly gained attention through its Claude AI models and coding assistant Claude Code. It expects to reach $50 billion in annualized revenue next month after revenue surged 80-fold in the first quarter.

The company also signed a nearly $50 billion computing deal with SpaceX to expand its AI infrastructure.

It launched Claude Opus 4.8 on Thursday and introduced Claude Mythos Preview, a cybersecurity-focused system for select companies. It is preparing for a future stock market listing.