SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2026, 02:21 PDT
Anthropic has locked in terms for a $30 billion fundraising, the Financial Times said Friday, a move that would peg the Claude developer’s valuation near $900 billion—potentially eclipsing OpenAI as the world’s top-valued AI startup if it goes through. People familiar with the matter told FT the deal could wrap up as early as this month, but the details might still shift before anything is made public.
The timing is key, with investors now eyeing revenue, real user uptake, and compute access instead of just AI model showcases. According to the FT, Anthropic’s annualized revenue is on track to top $45 billion soon—way up from roughly $9 billion at last year’s close.
That marks a significant jump from February—back then, Anthropic announced it had secured $30 billion in Series G funding and put its post-money valuation at $380 billion, factoring in the new capital. At the time, Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao pointed out that Claude was “increasingly becoming critical” to business operations. Anthropic also disclosed its run-rate revenue had climbed to $14 billion. Anthropic
According to FT, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter Capital are lined up to co-lead the new round, each putting in at least $2 billion. Other investors are still in discussions to cover the remainder. In this market, those kinds of big-ticket commitments are becoming standard as developing advanced AI systems pushes demand for expensive chips, sprawling data centers, and cloud infrastructure.
If Anthropic’s round closes at the rumored price, the company’s valuation would land above OpenAI, which hit $852 billion after a March raise, Reuters said. Last month, the outlet also reported some OpenAI investors had started to question that figure. The concerns surfaced as OpenAI ramped up its focus on enterprise and coding products—moves intended to take on Anthropic and Google.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT continues to command a hefty consumer audience—around 900 million weekly users, according to The Wall Street Journal. But Anthropic is catching up in business and developer circles. The Journal’s data indicates Anthropic has actually surpassed OpenAI on certain enterprise adoption metrics and U.S. app downloads. That’s shifting the rivalry past the consumer chatbot stage.
Anthropic is pushing to prove Claude is already in use, not just running pilots. On Thursday, the company and PwC said they’re deepening their partnership—PwC will start by deploying Claude Code and Cowork with its U.S. teams, plus set up a joint Center of Excellence and train 30,000 of its professionals for certification. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei put the potential reach at “hundreds of thousands” of PwC employees. Anthropic
Infrastructure’s the tougher challenge. Last month, Amazon announced Anthropic had agreed to spend north of $100 billion over a decade on AWS tech, securing up to 5 gigawatts of Trainium chip power. Amazon also put in an immediate $5 billion investment, with another $20 billion possible if certain milestones are hit.
The company is also positioning its growth as part of a broader discussion about AI’s impact and who gains from the technology. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Anthropic and the Gates Foundation have committed $200 million over four years to support AI-driven public goods in health and education. Elizabeth Kelly, who heads Anthropic’s beneficial deployments team, called the initiative “core” to the company’s mission. Reuters
This isn’t a straightforward public-market read. Bloomberg noted earlier that the talks are still in flux—no term sheet yet, and according to the Economic Times, details might shift before anything gets formalized. With numbers this big, shifts in cloud expenses, chip availability, revenue timing, or investor sentiment can all throw off the calculations.
At this stage, Anthropic’s pitch is simple: it’s built a safety-forward AI brand that big investors can read as a business software bet—think enterprise deals, developer tools, and limited compute. That kind of story could justify a $900 billion private valuation. But with costs high, Anthropic still has to show that demand for Claude is strong enough to make the numbers work.
