Anthropic Overtakes OpenAI in AI Valuation Race

Anthropic has leapfrogged OpenAI to become the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup, reaching a valuation of $965bn after a massive new fundraising round that highlights the intense investor appetite surrounding the AI industry.

The company announced on Thursday that it had raised $65bn from private investors in a funding round led by Altimeter Capital, Greenoaks, Dragoneer and Sequoia Capital. The deal pushes Anthropic ahead of OpenAI, whose most recent fundraising round in March valued the ChatGPT creator at $852bn.

The milestone marks another dramatic chapter in the rapid rise of Anthropic, a company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers and now considered one of the leading contenders in the race to dominate the next generation of artificial intelligence.

“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens,” Anthropic Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao said in a statement.

At the centre of the company’s growth is Claude, Anthropic’s family of AI models and chatbots. Since its launch in 2023, Claude has become one of the most widely used AI products globally. Earlier this year, Anthropic said the platform was attracting more than one million new users per day, reflecting the growing demand for AI tools across both consumer and enterprise markets.

Investors backing the latest fundraising round argue that Anthropic’s momentum is being driven not only by popularity but also by adoption among major organisations.

“This momentum positions Anthropic to lead the next phase of AI innovation and capture the enormous opportunity ahead,” Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said, pointing to the growing use of Claude by what he described as the “world’s most demanding organisations”.

The company’s rise has not been without controversy. Anthropic has found itself at odds with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has labelled the firm a “supply chain risk” over its refusal to provide unrestricted access to its AI systems for military purposes.

Alongside the funding announcement, Anthropic also unveiled Opus 4.8, the newest version of Claude. The company described the release as a “modest but tangible improvement” over the previous model.

The latest valuation increase adds to growing expectations that Anthropic, OpenAI and even Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX could eventually pursue public listings in what would likely rank among the largest initial public offerings ever seen.