The round, one of the largest for AI companies to date, was led by investment firm Iconiq Capital, along with Fidelity Management and Research Co. and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other participants in the round included Singapore’s GIC and Insight Partners. The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) also participated in the deal, the company said.
The funding exceeded initial expectations due to strong demand from investors seeking a stake in one of the most prominent AI companies. Anthropic was initially in talks to raise $5 billion, then raised its target to $10 billion, as previously reported by Bloomberg, and eventually reached $13 billion.
In a statement on Tuesday, the company said the latest investment “reflects Anthropic’s unprecedented growth rate and solidifies our position as the leading AI platform for enterprises, developers, and power users.”
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, Anthropic positions itself as a reliable, high-security company that users can trust. Although it is smaller than OpenAI, the company’s Claude chatbot and underlying technology have gained popularity among enterprise clients in sectors such as finance and healthcare, as well as developers.
Anthropic is showing rapid growth: the company reported that its annualized revenue had grown from about $1 billion in early 2025 to over $5 billion in August.
The company now has 300,000 enterprise customers, the statement said. Anthropic also noted that its Claude Code programming tool generates more than $500 million in annualized revenue and its usage has grown more than 10-fold in three months.
“Business leaders tell us what we see for ourselves — Claude is robust, built on a foundation of trust, and led by leaders who are truly focused on the long term,” Iconiq partner Divesh Makan said in a statement. He added that the firm’s bet on Anthropic “reflects our belief in their values and ability to shape the future of responsible AI.”
Despite its growth, Anthropic faces stiff competition. In August, OpenAI released its long-awaited GPT-5 model, which is better at coding — one of the key features of Anthropic’s AI system. Other companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, are also developing tools to help programmers write and debug code. Anthropic has previously invested in Amazon.com Inc. and Google.
Companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. are making big investments in AI development, the latter of which has increased spending on talent and infrastructure. Bloomberg News reports that OpenAI is in preliminary talks about a possible stock sale to current and former employees at a valuation of about $500 billion, which would make it the world’s most valuable startup. And Elon Musk is reportedly looking for a valuation of up to $200 billion for his AI startup xAI.
In 2024, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that the cost of creating advanced AI models could reach $10 billion by this year or next.
Source: Bloomberg