Anthropic, a company established by former OpenAI staff, is reportedly negotiating to secure a funding round of $750 million, led by Menlo Ventures, according to a source familiar with the situation speaking to CNBC.
This new funding is expected to bring Anthropic’s valuation up to $18.4 billion, marking a significant increase from its $4.1 billion earlier in the year. While The Information initially broke the news of the fundraising efforts, Anthropic has not issued any statements regarding the matter.
Since its inception in 2021 with backing from major companies like Google, Salesforce, and Zoom, Anthropic has already amassed $750 million through two funding rounds earlier in the year, with one round resulting in Google acquiring a 10% ownership stake. Additionally, Google committed to a future investment of up to $2 billion, including an immediate $500 million cash infusion.
Anthropic is known for developing Claude 2, a chatbot competing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and is utilized by various firms such as Slack owned by Salesforce, Notion, and Quora. Notably, Claude 2 has the capacity to summarize content equivalent to a book’s length, offering outputs in formats like memos or stories. This capability is a significant advancement over ChatGPT’s word handling limit.
The founding team of Anthropic includes OpenAI’s former VP of research, Dario Amodei, and his sister Daniela Amodei, along with other OpenAI alumni. The company’s products have been recognized for their reliability, particularly in self-awareness assessments, outperforming other major industry players.
Daniela Amodei has expressed optimism about the industry’s growth, noting the expansive demand for large language models and the ample opportunities for various entities to benefit from these technologies. With a substantial team dedicated to advancing their AI model, Anthropic is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.