- Anthropic is looking to raise up to $5 billion at a $170 billion valuation in a funding round led by Iconiq Capital, CNBC has confirmed.
- In March, the artificial intelligence startup raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation.
- Like OpenAI, Anthropic is looking to the Middle East for new capital.
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According to CNBC, Anthropic is in negotiations to raise $3 billion to $5 billion in a funding round headed by Iconiq Capital, which would assign a $170 billion valuation to the artificial intelligence startup.
Investors’ desire to own a stake in the fastest-growing AI startups is reflected in the OpenAI competitor’s rapidly rising valuation, which has been bringing in billions of dollars. Anthropic, backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, closed a $3.5 billion round at a $61.5 billion in March.
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The most recent discussions were initially reported by Bloomberg, which CNBC verified with a source with knowledge of the situation who wished to remain anonymous for confidentiality reasons. After speaking with several Middle Eastern investors, the Financial Times estimated Anthropic’s future valuation at closer to $150 billion late last week.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is changing his mind about Middle East investment, according to a leaked memo that was shared with Wire. He stated that, despite earlier cautions about the national security dangers of giving “soft power” to authoritarian governments, it is now “substantially harder to stay on the frontier” of AI development without accessing Gulf sovereign funding.
According to a CNBC article from the previous year, Anthropic was lining up new investors while refusing to accept money from Saudi Arabia.
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Competitors are looking to the Middle East as well. OpenAI is collaborating with the Emirati company G42 to construct a large data center in Abu Dhabi, and it still has $30 billion to invest in its anticipated $40 billion round. According to its most recent fundraising round, OpenAI is worth roughly $300 billion.
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