Sequoia Capital is reportedly becoming a member of a blockbuster funding spherical for Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, according to the Financial Times. It’s a transfer certain to show heads in Silicon Valley.
Why? As a result of enterprise capital corporations have traditionally averted backing competing corporations in the identical sector, preferring to position their bets on a single winner. But right here’s Sequoia, already invested in each OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, now throwing its weight behind Anthropic, too.
The timing is especially shocking given what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned beneath oath final yr. As a part of OpenAI’s protection towards Musk’s lawsuit, Altman addressed rumors about restrictions in OpenAI’s 2024 funding spherical. Whereas he denied that OpenAI traders had been broadly prohibited from backing rivals, he did acknowledge that traders with ongoing entry to OpenAI’s confidential data had been advised that entry could be terminated “in the event that they made non-passive investments in OpenAI’s opponents.” Altman known as this “business commonplace” safety (which it’s) towards misuse of competitively-sensitive data.
Based on the FT, Sequoia is becoming a member of a funding spherical led by Singapore’s GIC and U.S. investor Coatue, who’re every contributing $1.5 billion. Anthropic is aiming to boost $25 billion or extra at a $350 billion valuation — greater than double its $170 billion valuation from simply 4 months in the past. The WSJ and Bloomberg had earlier reported the spherical at $10 billion. Microsoft and Nvidia have dedicated as much as $15 billion mixed, with VCs and different traders mentioned to be contributing one other $10 billion or extra.
The Sequoia reference to Altman runs deep. When Altman dropped out of Stanford to start out Loopt, Sequoia backed him. He later turned a “scout” for Sequoia, introducing the agency to Stripe, which turned one of many agency’s most dear portfolio corporations. Sequoia’s new co-leader Alfred Lin and Altman additionally seem comparatively shut. Lin has interviewed Altman quite a few instances at Sequoia occasions, and when Altman was briefly ousted from OpenAI in November 2023, Lin publicly mentioned he’d eagerly again Altman’s “subsequent world-changing firm.”
Whereas Sequoia’s funding in xAI would possibly appear to have already contradicted the normal VC method of selecting winners, that wager is extensively seen as much less about backing an OpenAI competitor and extra about deepening the agency’s in depth ties to Elon Musk. Sequoia invested in X when Musk purchased Twitter and rebranded it, is an investor in SpaceX and The Boring Firm, and is a serious backer of Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface firm. Longtime Sequoia chief Michael Moritz was even an early investor in Musk’s X.com, which turned a part of PayPal.
Sequoia’s obvious reversal on portfolio conflicts is very obtrusive given its historic stance. As we reported in 2020, the agency took the extraordinary step of strolling away from its funding in funds firm Finix after figuring out the startup competed with Stripe. Sequoia forfeited its $21 million funding, letting Finix hold the cash whereas giving up its board seat, data rights, and shares, marking the primary time within the agency’s historical past it had severed ties with a newly funded firm over a battle of curiosity. (Sequoia had led Finix’s $35 million Sequence B spherical simply months earlier.)
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The reported Anthropic funding comes after dramatic management modifications at Sequoia, the place Roelof Botha was pushed out in a shock vote simply days after sitting down with this editor at TechCrunch Disrupt, with Lin and Pat Grady — who’d led that Finix deal — taking on.
Anthropic is reportedly getting ready for an IPO that might come as quickly as this yr. We’ve reached out to Sequoia Capital for remark.
