Anthropic announced on Monday the launch of a joint venture focused on deploying enterprise artificial intelligence services, as its main competitor OpenAI prepares for a similar move.
The primary partners in Anthropic‘s venture are Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs, each committing to invest $300 million. The new venture is valued at a total of $1.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
This news emerged just hours before Bloomberg reported on OpenAI‘s plans to raise funds for its own new venture, named The Development Company. OpenAI‘s project, which is set to operate on a larger scale, aims to secure $4 billion from 19 investors and is valued at $10 billion. Named investors include TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital.
Anthropic‘s venture is also backed by a group of venture funds, hedge funds, and private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green, and Sequoia Capital.
While there is no apparent overlap in the investments made in OpenAI‘s and Anthropic‘s ventures, the underlying rationale for both initiatives is identical. They aim to attract capital from alternative asset managers and establish new avenues for deals in the enterprise AI sector.
What Are the Benefits for Investors and Companies?
Investors are expected to gain priority access to sales for their portfolio companies and derive greater value from signed contracts. The new capital will enable the allocation of more engineering resources to each individual project.
Both ventures are adopting the forward-deployed engineer (FDE) model, where engineers work directly with clients, a practice popularized by Palantir. In its announcement, Anthropic stated that «engagement can begin with the company’s engineering team sitting down with clinicians and IT personnel to develop tools that fit into workflows already used by staff.»
Anthropic also reported that «such engagements will take place in mid-sized companies across various industries» and each engagement will be «shaped by the people closest to the work.»
The launch of these new ventures comes amidst a frantic pace of fundraising by both AI labs, which are reportedly considering potential initial public offerings (IPOs).
In late March, OpenAI announced it had secured $122 billion in new funding, with its valuation reaching $852 billion. Last week, TechCrunch reported that Anthropic is in the final stages of its own funding round, aiming to raise $50 billion at a $900 billion valuation.
Source: TechCrunch
