The latest round of financing for Anthropic is expected to exceed $30 billion, with a valuation that could surpass OpenAI, making it the world's most valuable AI startup company.

Anthropic is close to completing a new round of massive financing. According to sources familiar with the matter, this AI startup company may complete the financing as early as next week, with the financing expected to exceed $30 billion, and the company's valuation is expected to surpass $900 billion. If the transaction is finalized, Anthropic's valuation will exceed that of OpenAI, becoming the world's highest valued AI startup. Sources said that this round of financing is expected to be jointly led by several top investment institutions, including Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Altimeter Capital, and Greenoak Capital. Reports indicate that each of these institutions plans to invest around $2 billion. In addition, existing shareholders of Anthropic, including Founders Fund and General Catalyst, also plan to continue participating in the financing. Sources revealed that the demand for subscriptions in this round of financing is very strong, and the actual amount of financing has even exceeded Anthropic's original target of $30 billion. However, the relevant agreements are still in the final stages and specific terms may still change. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by several former OpenAI employees. In recent years, the company has rapidly risen with its Claude series AI models and rapidly expanded its market influence in AI programming, enterprise automation, and network security. Currently, Anthropic and OpenAI are considered to be among the most competitive large model companies globally. Earlier reports suggested that both companies may launch an IPO as early as this fall. With the continuous explosion of corporate AI demand, Anthropic's financial performance is also rapidly growing. According to previous reports, the company is expected to achieve $10.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter, doubling from the previous quarter, and is expected to have its first profitable quarter in history. Sources also said that Anthropic has informed investors that the company's annualized revenue is expected to exceed $50 billion by the end of next month. In July last year, this number was only $4 billion. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had previously stated earlier this month that the company's first-quarter annualized revenue and usage had increased 80 times year-on-year. He said that due to the growth in demand far exceeding expectations, the company is "expanding computational resources as quickly as possible" to support the expansion of AI services. To meet the rapidly growing demand for AI training and inference, Anthropic has recently signed several large-scale computational power cooperation agreements. Among them, the company has reached a nearly $45 billion cooperation agreement with SpaceX, and an $18 billion agreement with Akamai Technologies to expand its AI infrastructure capabilities. Meanwhile, Anthropic also heavily relies on AI chips and cloud computing resources provided by Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG.US, GOOGL.US). It is worth noting that Anthropic is currently even seeking financing support directly from some suppliers. Alphabet Inc. Class C has previously committed to investing $10 billion in Anthropic at a valuation of $350 billion. Additionally, if Anthropic achieves certain performance goals, Alphabet Inc. Class C may continue to add up to $30 billion in investments. At the same time, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) has also announced that it will invest $5 billion in Anthropic at a valuation of $350 billion, and plans to add up to $20 billion in the future. It is currently unclear whether Alphabet Inc. Class C and Amazon.com, Inc. will participate in this new round of financing. In comparison, OpenAI's most recent financing was completed in March this year, when the company's valuation was around $85.2 billion. Reports indicate that OpenAI is currently preparing to confidentially submit IPO application documents.