A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Closes Deal That Values It at $61.5 Billion
The New York Times
The announcement follows new fund-raising efforts from rivals like OpenAI, which is set to close a deal that values the company at $300 billion, and Elon Musk’s xAI.
The artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic said on Monday that it had completed a new fund-raising deal that valued the company at $61.5 billion, up from about $16 billion a little more than a year ago.
Led by the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, the new round will pump an additional $3.5 billion into the company. Since its founding in 2021, Anthropic has raised more than $14.8 billion from venture firms like Menlo Ventures and tech giants like Amazon, Google and Salesforce.
The deal comes amid a surge in funding activity for the industry’s most prominent A.I. start-ups. OpenAI is set to complete a $40 billion fund-raising deal that would value the company at $300 billion, nearly double its valuation from just five months ago. Elon Musk’s xAI is in talks for a new financing round that could value it at as much as $75 billion, up from about $40 billion just two months ago, two people with knowledge of the discussions said.
OpenAI started the A.I. boom in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, setting off a funding surge that moved billions into a wide range of start-ups. Enthusiasm among investors for A.I. companies cooled in 2024, as several high-profile start-ups were essentially folded into tech giants like Google and Amazon. But as companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, with its chatbot called Claude, have continued to improve their A.I. technologies, investor interest has returned.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)
Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, and his sister, Daniela Amodei, its president, founded the company as a start-up that would build A.I. with guardrails. Like several others on the company’s founding team, they had left OpenAI after disagreements with the start-up's leadership over how its technologies were being funded and released through Microsoft.
The reality star who rose to fame on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is being investigated for domestic violence along with the father of one of her children.
A new study found that women who went through so-called premature menopause had 40 percent more fatal and nonfatal heart attacks over the course of their lives.
In a stroke of luck, astronomers saw the comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) break into four or five fragments in November after it passed close to the sun.
New A.I. bots can do more than just chat. They can edit files, send emails, book trips and cause trouble.
The series, “inspired” by the story of a royal dresser later convicted of murder, is getting added attention over the former Duchess of York’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawyers for both sides in the federal lawsuit, brought by six medical organizations, are trying to understand the ramifications of the judge’s decision.
Andy Weir discusses his science-fueled novel “Project Hail Mary,” which has been adapted into a film that opens in theaters on Friday.
After years of criticism and financial risk, Palantir, Anthropic and small start-ups are generating rewards from their investments in defense tech.
In a legal filing, the government said it questioned whether the A.I. start-up could be a “trusted partner” in wartime, which led it to label the company a supply chain risk.
Before humanity sent satellites, telescopes, humans and weapons into space, Robert Goddard experimented with the first liquid-fueled rocket on his aunt’s farm.
A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support “on a massive scale.”
A Florida bill that would have regulated artificial intelligence, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, failed to gain traction after President Trump made it clear he did not want states to rein in the technology.
The series, “inspired” by the story of a royal dresser later convicted of murder, is getting added attention over the former Duchess of York’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.