Anthropic closes in on $20B round

Anthropic is nearing completion of a massive new fundraising round, with reports indicating the artificial intelligence company is set to secure $20 billion in fresh capital at a valuation of approximately $350 billion. According to Bloomberg, strong investor interest has prompted the company to double the amount it originally intended to raise.

This latest fundraising effort follows closely on the heels of the company’s previous capital raise. Just five months ago, Anthropic secured $13 billion in equity financing. However, escalating competition among frontier AI labs and the sustained cost of large-scale compute infrastructure have intensified the urgency to expand its financial reserves as quickly as possible.

Several prominent investment firms are expected to participate in the new round. These reportedly include Altimeter Capital Management, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Coatue Management, Iconiq Capital, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. The majority of the capital, however, is expected to come from strategic partners Nvidia and Microsoft.

The company’s fundraising momentum builds on a series of recent product achievements. Among the most notable has been the rollout of its coding agents, tools that have drawn significant praise from software engineers who report substantial gains in coding productivity. In addition, the company introduced new AI models last week tailored for legal and business research. That release reportedly unsettled public markets, with shares of several publicly traded data companies declining amid investor concerns that advanced AI systems could disrupt their core businesses.

Meanwhile, Anthropic’s chief rival, OpenAI, is reportedly preparing an even larger $100 billion fundraising round. Both organisations are widely believed to be positioning themselves for potential public offerings, with expectations of a high-profile summer in capital markets. Adding to the competitive landscape, xAI — recently acquired by SpaceX — is also reportedly seeking public equity as part of the rocket company’s planned IPO activity.

As the race among leading AI developers accelerates, access to substantial funding remains critical. With infrastructure costs climbing and competition intensifying, the scale of these fundraising efforts underscores the capital-intensive nature of building next-generation artificial intelligence systems.