"Hidden Gem" unearthed: Zoom (ZM.US) investment in Anthropic yields nearly a hundredfold profit Baird reaffirms "outperforming the market" rating.

On Monday, the stock price of video conferencing company Zoom (ZM.US) surged more than 11%. Prior to this, investment firm Baird highlighted Zoom's investment in the emerging artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic in its report. Baird analyst William Power wrote in a research report to clients, "Although our and the market's previous focus was mainly on whether Zoom can gradually regain revenue growth momentum and seize the AI opportunity, the company's $51 million investment in Anthropic may be a 'hidden gem' that has not been fully appreciated." Power reiterated his "outperform" rating for Zoom and maintained a target price of $95. It is understood that Zoom's venture capital department completed its investment in Anthropic in 2023, the latter being the developer of the popular Claude series AI models. Earlier this month, there were reports that Anthropic was in talks to raise $10 billion at a valuation of $350 billion. Baird stated that based on this valuation, Zoom's stake could be worth $2 billion to $4 billion. The latest data shows that Anthropic's annualized revenue scale has recently exceeded $9 billion.