Investors are scrambling to increase their stakes! Anthropic’s new round of financing is expected to double, with its valuation reaching $350 billion!

AI startup Anthropic is entering the final stages of a new large-scale funding round, expected to surpass $20 billion, with the deal possibly closing as soon as next week. This OpenAI rival initially planned to raise around $10 billion, but due to investor demand far exceeding expectations, the final amount could double the original target, potentially valuing the company at $350 billion.

According to Bloomberg, this round has been oversubscribed by several top institutions: Coatue Management, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC, and Iconiq Capital have each pledged over $1 billion. Additionally, strategic investors Nvidia and Microsoft plan to inject up to $15 billion each, further strengthening their positions in the ecosystem.

If this funding round goes through, Anthropic's valuation will nearly double compared to its previous round about five months ago, reflecting the market's continued strong confidence in this AI startup. Notably, the company's annualized revenue surpassed $9 billion last summer, demonstrating robust commercial progress.

Recently, Anthropic released a new AI model optimized for enterprise task automation, triggering significant sell-offs in software and financial services stocks and causing market capitalization fluctuations of several billion dollars. Its coding agent tool, capable of completing software development with minimal human intervention, has become the top choice for enterprises and developer groups, further consolidating its competitive advantage in the enterprise AI market.

According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, the deal has not been formally completed and the timing or specific terms may still change. Altimeter Capital Management and Sequoia Capital, both supporters of OpenAI, are also expected to participate in this round. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures will also invest.

Automation Technology Leads the Market

Anthropic's coding capabilities are seen as key to opening a new stage of work scenario automation, with investors betting its tools will gradually expand into other areas of the economy, just as they have transformed software development. Over the past year, the company's coding agent has become a regular part of enterprise and developer workflows, providing empirical evidence for its commercial prospects.

This funding round and its accompanying employee equity sale coincide with OpenAI, its main competitor, negotiating a new funding round of up to $100 billion, which may again set a global record in the AI sector. Notably, both companies have already begun preparations for IPOs this year.

As AI valuations continue to climb, industry players also face enormous capital pressures from building data centers, procuring chips, and recruiting top talent. In addition, some of the funding from ecosystem partners like Nvidia is cyclical, which has raised concerns in the market about the health of industry capital structures.

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