Inside AI Unicorn Anthropic’s Unusual $750 Million Fundraise
- 3 months ago
While artificial intelligence startup OpenAI reportedly ended the year discussing a fundraise at a valuation of $100 billion or more, one of its leading challengers, Anthropic, was accepting a round of its own. Appearing almost modest in comparison, Anthropic was raising $750 million in new funding that would nearly quadruple its valuation to $18.4 billion.
New details of the unusual round, which remains in progress, reveal how lead investor Menlo Ventures used an increasingly popular tactic to jump to the front: a special purpose vehicle, or SPV. The impetus to do the round, according to multiple sources, came from an opportunistic Menlo seeking to double down on a position in one of AI’s leading unicorns ahead of a potential larger round later in 2024, once Anthropic’s revenue had grown. For a previously small shareholder, it was a power play. For Anthropic, a painless way to burnish its war chest amid a hiring and product race.
Anthropic hadn’t been planning to do a round at the end of 2023 at all: the startup had previously signaled to interested investors that it preferred to wait until the second half of 2024 to make a formal fundraising push, according to four people with knowledge of the process. But Menlo’s offer made sense: the company gained a cash infusion at a critical juncture with minimal fuss, while also formalizing terms for two others promised by key cloud computing partners, Amazon and Google.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2024/01/11/anthropic-750million-funding-round-menlo-ventures/?sh=586036c96e23
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New details of the unusual round, which remains in progress, reveal how lead investor Menlo Ventures used an increasingly popular tactic to jump to the front: a special purpose vehicle, or SPV. The impetus to do the round, according to multiple sources, came from an opportunistic Menlo seeking to double down on a position in one of AI’s leading unicorns ahead of a potential larger round later in 2024, once Anthropic’s revenue had grown. For a previously small shareholder, it was a power play. For Anthropic, a painless way to burnish its war chest amid a hiring and product race.
Anthropic hadn’t been planning to do a round at the end of 2023 at all: the startup had previously signaled to interested investors that it preferred to wait until the second half of 2024 to make a formal fundraising push, according to four people with knowledge of the process. But Menlo’s offer made sense: the company gained a cash infusion at a critical juncture with minimal fuss, while also formalizing terms for two others promised by key cloud computing partners, Amazon and Google.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2024/01/11/anthropic-750million-funding-round-menlo-ventures/?sh=586036c96e23
Forbes Daily Briefing shares the best of Forbes reporting on wealth, business, entrepreneurship, leadership and more. Tune in every day, seven days a week, to hear a new story. Subscribe here: https://art19.com/shows/forbes-daily-briefing
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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