AI start-up Anthropic has secured a new funding round worth $3.5 billion, valuing the company at $61.5 billion, according to sources. The venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners led the deal, which brings the total investment in Anthropic to over $14.8 billion since its founding in 2021.
The move comes as a surge in funding activity for prominent AI start-ups continues, with OpenAI set to complete a $40 billion fund-raising deal that would value it at $300 billion. Other notable companies like xAI are also seeking new financing rounds, with possible valuations of up to $75 billion.
Anthropic’s CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei has been vocal about the potential benefits and risks of AI technology. In a 2023 podcast interview, he expressed concerns that AI could destroy humanity, but later published an essay on the positive potential of AI technologies. The company recently raised $4 billion from Amazon, its largest investor, which has invested a total of $8 billion in Anthropic.
Anthropic’s chatbot called Claude is one of several AIs developed by the company, which aims to build AI systems with “guardrails” to mitigate risks. With the latest funding round, the company is poised to continue improving its AI technologies and capitalizing on growing investor interest in the sector.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/technology/anthropic-ai-fund-raising-61-billion.html