The Silicon Valley lab behind the Claude artificial intelligence (AI) bot has set its sights on a valuation of close to $1tn as it steps up its war with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Anthropic is reportedly preparing to raise as much as $50bn (£37bn) at a valuation as high as $900bn, putting it within touching distance of the trillion-dollar club of major tech giants. Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia are among the US companies worth north of $1tn.
The fundraising round would catapult the company past OpenAI, which raised money in March at a valuation of $852bn.
Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer, has been talking to investors about the potential deal, the Financial Times reported, although no agreement has been reached. The deal could come together as soon as this summer.
The new investment would come just months after Anthropic raised $30bn in a deal that valued the company, which has a strict focus on AI safety, at $380bn.
Since that fundraising round in February, Anthropic’s Claude has surged in popularity as programmers embrace the app for coding and running autonomous bots known as AI agents.
Sources close to the business told the Financial Times they expected its annual recurring revenue, a preferred metric in Silicon Valley that forecasts full-year sales, to hit $45bn, a sharp jump from $9bn at the end of last year.
While ChatGPT remains the most used AI chat app, Anthropic, which is led by AI safety advocate Dario Amodei, has seen the popularity of Claude soar thanks to its proficiency at coding. The app has allowed those with limited technical knowledge to do basic programming and helped professional developers accelerate their work.
It has also been embraced by businesses, with Anthropic targeting corporate customers while OpenAI has largely focused on consumers.
Anthropic’s hunt for further funding comes as it grapples with a shortfall in computing power as the company struggles to keep up with rampant demand for its Claude app.
Like other AI tools, Claude is reliant on vast data centres and its sudden popularity has left Anthropic scrambling to secure enough capacity.
The shortages have forced Anthropic to ration access to its bot in peak hours, threatening its growth. Anthropic reached a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to lease access to its AI supercomputers earlier this week.
Anthropic is among a trio of tech giants expected to target an initial public offering, potentially as soon as this year.
Mr Musk’s SpaceX, which includes his xAI business, is lining up a float this summer that could value it at $1.75tn. OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, is also expected to attempt to go public at a valuation north of $1tn later this year.
