Image source: generated by Unbounded AI

Anthropic is about to usher in an important milestone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the three-year-old AI company is negotiating a $2 billion financing round that would bring its valuation to $60 billion—nearly four times the $16 billion it raised a year ago. This valuation puts Anthropic among the top five most valuable startups in the United States, behind SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks.

This round of financing was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Since its founding in 2021, Anthropic has received more than $11.3 billion in funding from VCs such as Menlo Park Ventures and technology giants such as Amazon, Google and Salesforce.

The industry’s most well-known AI startups have recently received new rounds of financing. Last month, Musk’s xAI completed a $6 billion round of financing, with a valuation ranging from $35 billion to $45 billion. In October, OpenAI raised $6.6 billion at a valuation of $157 billion, just two months after Anthropic received a $4 billion investment from its important partner Amazon.

Traditionally, startups have gone public before reaching valuations in the tens of billions of dollars. Startups such as Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI, and technology giants such as Meta and Google are competing fiercely to develop AI models, which require billions of dollars to be invested in training and operations. Investors don’t expect these startups to turn a profit in the short term, but they believe the technology could create trillions of dollars in value in the future. Data from the data agency PitchBook also confirms this: last year, about half of the total investment of US$209 billion in US venture capital went into AI companies.

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, with a special focus on AI security. In the past year, the company's performance has not been inferior to other top AI companies, and it has also hired many employees from OpenAI.

Anthropic has ramped up its development efforts over the last year, announcing in October that its AI agents can use computers to complete complex tasks in the same way humans do. Anthropic said its new computer usage capabilities enable the technology to interpret content on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, browse websites and perform tasks from any software and real-time web browsing.

The tool is capable of "basically using computers in the same way that we do," Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief scientific officer, told CNBC at the time. He noted that it can do "tens or even hundreds of"Steps" mission. According to Bloomberg, OpenAI plans to launch similar capabilities soon.

In September, Anthropic launched Claude Enterprise, the largest new product since the launch of its chatbot, designed for Anthropic also released Claude 3.5, a more powerful AI model looking to integrate its AI technology into enterprise designs earlier last year. Sonnet.

In addition to continuous breakthroughs in technology and products, Anthropic has also shown no less strong momentum than OpenAI in the capital market.

1. No less financing capability than OpenAI

Despite the impressive data, Anthropic’s “money-attracting” ability may still be underestimated. According to the latest information, Anthropic’s annual revenue is estimated to be approximately US$875 million. The value/revenue ratio reaches approximately 68.6 times, while OpenAI’s latest valuation is US$157 billion, with expected revenue of US$3.7 billion in 2024, and the valuation/revenue ratio is approximately 42.4 times. pic's valuation multiple is significantly higher than OpenAI's, which reflects investors' high expectations for its future growth potential, especially in the enterprise market and technological innovation. However, it also means that Anthropic needs to future-proof its business model. Sustainability.

Anthropic’s valuation to annual revenue ratio is higher than that of OpenAI, and the high valuation reflects the market’s high expectations for its future growth potential, although its annual revenue is currently lower. OpenAI, but its rapid growth has made investors confident in its future market performance, thus pushing up the company's valuation

Anthropic was founded by former core team members of OpenAI and has powerful technology. Background and innovation capabilities. Its large language model Claude is regarded as a strong competitor of ChatGPT, and has shown the potential to surpass OpenAI in some technical fields. This technical advantage makes Anthropic a leader in AI. It has a unique position in the industry and has attracted the attention and financial support of a large number of investors.

In addition, Anthropic has received huge investments from technology giants such as Google and Amazon. The support of these investors not only provides Anthropic. It also provides sufficient funds and enhances the market's confidence in its future development. For example, Amazon invested 40% in Anthropic in 2023. This large-scale capital injection has significantly increased the company's valuation, especially in the field of enterprise customers. This improvement in competitive position has made investors optimistic about its future market. Be more optimistic, thus pushing up the ratio of its valuation to annual revenue.

However, high valuations also mean high risks. This financial pressure could have an impact on the company's long-term growth and investor returns. In addition, competition in the AI ​​industry is becoming increasingly fierce, and Anthropic needs to continuously innovate and improve product performance to maintain its leading position in the market.

Anthropic’s financing began with a US$124 million Series A round of financing in May 2021, led by Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, with participation from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and other investors. In April 2022, the company completed a US$580 million Series B financing led by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, of which FTX invested a total of US$500 million, and FTX and its executive team obtained approximately 7.84% of the equity.

2023 will become a key development year for Anthropic. In February of that year, Google invested US$300 million and obtained about 10% of the shares, while establishing a cloud service partnership. In May, the company completed a US$450 million Series C financing led by Spark Capital, with participation from well-known investment institutions such as Salesforce Ventures and Zoom Ventures. In 2024, Amazon pledged to invest US$4 billion to push Anthropic to new heights of development. It is currently negotiating a US$2 billion D round of financing.

2. Amazon is betting heavily on “replicating” the Microsoft model

< p>Among the many investors in Anthropic, Amazon is undoubtedly the most prominent one. Amazon’s investment in Anthropic has set a record for the largest external investment in its history, and has also made AWS the main cloud service provider for Anthropic. In addition, Anthropic’s AI model Claude has been provided on AWS’s Bedrock platform for customers to use. This ambitious bet echoes Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI.

Anthropic and Amazon reflect a strategic partnership. In contrast, the partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft is more complicated. Microsoft is OpenAI's largest investor, having invested approximately $13 billion and serving as its exclusive cloud service provider. OpenAI’s advanced AI models are integrated into multiple Microsoft products, such as Azure cloud services and Office suites. However, despite the close relationship between the two, Microsoft recently listed OpenAI as a competitor in its annual report, indicating that the two sides compete in some areas.

As Anthropic develops its efforts in the enterprise market, perhaps both parties will also face competition between OpenAI and Microsoft for customers andReluctance to open up technical details and other potential competitive issues.

In addition to cooperation with giants, Anthropic’s financing process also had an episode with the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In 2022, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried decided to invest US$500 million in Anthropic. In terms of investment return, this may be the most successful investment in his life. However, the story behind this investment is not glamorous. He has stated in court that he actually misappropriated funds from FTX customers to complete this investment. When he borrowed the money from FTX, he had no intention of paying it back and was just gambling on whether it would succeed.

FTX’s investment in Anthropic was once seen as an important part of its bet on the AI ​​field. However, as FTX itself fell into bankruptcy, its shares in Anthropic became the focus of creditors, and its valuation soared. Anthropic became FTX’s best hope at that time to repay its debt. In 2024, FTX received a total of approximately US$1.3 billion from the sale of Anthropic shares, which were taken over by Abu Dhabi Investment Company, G Squared, Jane Street and other institutions.

The FTX incident has not hindered Anthropic’s development. By introducing technology giants such as Google and Amazon as strategic investors, Anthropic has not only resolved potential risks, but also achieved rapid growth in valuation. The valuation leap from US$18 billion to US$60 billion highlights the market's recognition of its technical strength and development prospects.

3. Anthropic, which is no longer Buddhist, has started to increase its strength?

By the end of 2024, Anthropic's annual revenue is expected to reach US$1 billion, an increase of 1,100% from last year. It is worth noting that 85% of its revenue comes from API business, which is much higher than OpenAI’s 27%, showing Anthropic’s unique advantages in enterprise services.

In the developer community, Claude is widely recognized for his excellent coding skills. Claude 3.5 Sonnet, launched by Anthropic this year, performed well in multiple technical reviews, demonstrating graduate-level reasoning capabilities and advanced programmer-level programming skills. This has led companies, including Microsoft, to begin integrating the Claude model into their own products.

What deserves more attention is Anthropic’s layout in AI interactive innovation. The company launched Claude Artifacts, which allows users to create applications without programming, and Computer Use, which can operate computers like humans. Not only has it won praise from developers, but it has also attracted traditional enterprise customers like Panasonic, which plans to cooperate with Anthropic cooperates to increase the proportion of AI-related revenue to 30% within ten years.

At the same time, as Anthropic’s financing amount and influence increase, Anthropic seems to be changing its low-key style and adopting bolder strategic adjustments to its competitors. Last October, after OpenAI experienced a wave of executive departures, including the departure of chief technology officer Mira Murati, at this juncture, Anthropic's Claude AI advertisements began to appear at San Francisco International Airport, with the sentence "Not those dramas" ( The slogan "The one without all the drama" is full of provocation.

This change is also reflected in social media, and Anthropic employees who rarely participate in public opinion battles have also begun to exert their efforts. On January 5, Sam Altman posted a six-character story on X: "near the singularity; unclear which side."

Subsequently, Anthropic's head of developer relations responded in a joking manner: claude claude claude; claude claude claude.

It’s like one person tells a complicated story full of symbolic meaning, and the other person directly replies in the simplest way: "Why do you talk so much? Just these six words, understand. Everyone understands.”

These signs indicate that a head-to-head battle has begun. The head-on confrontation between Anthropic and OpenAI may be the most noteworthy story in the AI ​​industry in 2025.