Anthropic, the maker of the Claude family of AI models, has become the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) startup, reaching a $965 billion valuation after raising $65 billion from private investors in a funding round led by Altimeter Capital, Greenoaks, Dragoneer, and Sequoia Capital.
The announcement, made on May 28, 2026, puts Anthropic ahead of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which attracted an $852 billion valuation in its last fundraising round in March.
A Company That Did Not Exist Six Years Ago
A company that did not exist six years ago, founded by people who left OpenAI because they believed it was moving too recklessly, is now worth more than OpenAI.
And in the space of eight months, Anthropic’s valuation went from $183 billion to $965 billion, a 5.3x increase. Jay Ritter, an IPO specialist at the University of Florida, told Al Jazeera this pace is unprecedented for a startup at this scale.
The Series H round includes $15 billion of previously committed hyperscale capital, with about $5 billion of that coming from Amazon. Other institutional investors in the round include Baillie Gifford, Blackstone, Brookfield, D.E. Shaw Ventures, DST Global, and Fidelity Management & Research. Strategic infrastructure partners Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix also joined.
The Revenue Story Behind the Valuation
The numbers backing Anthropic’s new position are not just about investor confidence. The company’s run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion in May. To understand how fast that is, Salesforce took about 20 years to reach $30 billion in annual revenue. Anthropic did it in under three years from a standing start.
As such, the AI safety company’s growth has been consistent. Anthropic grew from $1 billion in annualized revenue in December 2024, to $4 billion by July 2025, to $9 billion by December 2025, and to $14 billion by February 2026, a 10x annual growth rate sustained for three consecutive years. And as at last month, that figure had tripled again.
Much of this growth traces back its one product – Claude Code. It became generally available in May 2025, hit $1 billion in annualized revenue by November 2025, and reached $2.5 billion in annualized revenue by February 2026.
What this implies is that enterprise demand has been the main driver. The number of customers spending over $100,000 annually on Claude has grown 7x in the past year, and over 1,000 customers now spend over $1 million annually, doubling from 500 in under two months as of April 2026.
Approaching Its First Profit
The revenue growth is also moving Anthropic closer to a financial milestone. According to financial projections reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic is on track to post its first operating profit in Q2 2026. The company projects $10.9 billion in revenue for the June quarter, up 130% from $4.8 billion in Q1, and expects operating income of $559 million for the period.
The numbers represent a sharp reversal from financial guidance Anthropic gave investors last summer, which suggested the company did not expect to turn a full-year profit until at least 2028. The improvement comes partly from a shift in compute spending efficiency.
What Comes Next
This funding round is widely seen as Anthropic’s last private fundraise before debuting on the public markets. Anthropic announced Monday a possible IPO as soon as October 2026.
“Today, Anthropic, PBC confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of our common stock,” the company said in its press release. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are expected to be under consideration for lead underwriting roles.
Anthropic’s IPO filing, combined with OpenAI’s expected filing and SpaceX’s already-submitted paperwork, means the fall 2026 IPO window could see more than $200 billion in new public market value from three companies alone.
Now whether Anthropic holds its lead as a public company is a different question. But for now, the numbers say it has taken the top spot in the AI arms race.
