Anthropic said Thursday its valuation has climbed to $380 billion after a $30 billion fundraising round, positioning the company behind the chatbot Claude as one of the most valuable private startups that investors will be tracking for potential IPO moves. The announcement came as AI rivals—especially OpenAI and Anthropic, both based in San Francisco—push to win deals and users ahead of a possible jump to public markets.
In a statement shared with investors, Anthropic said the latest round was led by GIC and Coatue, and also included dozens of other major backers. The company said the infusion followed its November disclosures involving Nvidia and Microsoft, part of a broader arrangement that ties funding to future compute needs for building and operating AI systems like Claude.
Anthropic also said that some of the new funding reflects a portion of the $15 billion that Nvidia and Microsoft said they would invest in Anthropic in November. That investment is part of a deal that would commit Anthropic to buying from Microsoft some $30 billion in computing capacity needed for AI development and operations, according to Anthropic’s description of the funding structure.
The funding also underscores how large cloud providers have supported the race for AI infrastructure, with Anthropic saying it has been backed by Amazon and Google. Anthropic’s chief financial officer, Krishna Rao, said the company will use the funding to continue building “enterprise-grade products” and AI models.
Renaissance Capital, which tracks potential IPO opportunities, put Anthropic among the most valuable private firms, ranking it third behind OpenAI, valued at $500 billion, and SpaceX, which has been discussing market-facing developments as it merges Musk’s AI startup xAI. Angelo Bochanis, an associate at Renaissance Capital, said these are “the three biggest names that could go public this year,” and added that the first to do an IPO would have “an opportunity to raise even more money” and a “big headline” effect on its public image.
Anthropic said it is not profitable but is on track for sales of $14 billion over the next year—describing the growth from its “first dollar in revenue” that came less than three years ago. It also said it has tailored Claude’s products to serve as a workplace assistant, including for tasks such as software engineering.
Founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI employees, Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei has promised a clearer focus on the safety of artificial general intelligence, the “better-than-human” technology both companies have aimed to develop. Anthropic also said this week it launched a new $20 million bipartisan organization intended to influence AI regulation in the United States.
Bochanis said public-market scrutiny is a key risk for the companies as they seek listings, noting that they may face “a little more scrutiny” than in private markets. He said a single earnings report could “tank a stock,” contrasting the current era in which private investors have poured “dozens of billions of dollars” into firms even as valuations have multiplied.