Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, said Tuesday it raised $13 billion in a funding round that nearly tripled its valuation to $183 billion. The deal, which exceeded earlier expectations, makes Anthropic one of the world’s most valuable AI startups.
“We are seeing exponential growth in demand across our customer base,” Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer, said in a post announcing the funding. “This financing demonstrates investors’ exceptional confidence in our financial performance.”
The company said it has grown rapidly since launching Claude in early 2023, with its annualized revenue run rate rising fivefold to $5 billion so far this year.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously held senior roles at OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, but left over professional disagreements.
Rival OpenAI is reportedly in talks over a secondary share sale that would value the company at around $500 billion, according to reports.
The lofty valuations come despite growing questions about whether the wave of investment in generative AI startups is sustainable.