The artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has announced the creation of a $1.5 billion joint venture with U.S. investment firms Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman and investment bank Goldman Sachs dedicated to introducing the Claude language model into the processes of small and medium-sized businesses.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE NEW COMPANY
The new company will be independent and will integrate Anthropic’s engineers into its workforce, as well as work directly with the startup’s research and development staff.
Among the first clients are companies in the portfolios of Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs, but not only. On the list of investors, there are also alternative investment managers Apollo Global Management, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, and Leonard Green & Partners, all American, along with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.
THE INVESTMENTS
According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news, Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman will each invest about $300 million in the joint venture, while Goldman Sachs will invest around $150 million.
ANTHROPIC LIKE OPENAI?
Before Anthropic, OpenAI had already created an initiative for enterprise deployment, dedicated to bringing its artificial intelligence technologies to businesses: it is financially supported by funds such as TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield, and Goanna Capital.
WHAT ANTHROPIC AIMS FOR
Anthropic is very focused on selling artificial intelligence systems to businesses: its best-known product is the Claude chatbot, but the Claude Code agents (for code writing) and Cowork (for automatic execution of various “office” tasks) are having great success in the business market.
According to CFO Krishna Rao, “demand for Claude from businesses is far exceeding the capacity of any single distribution model.” Referring to the new joint venture, Rao believes it will bring “additional operational capabilities and capital”: Anthropic aims to expand particularly in the healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, retail, financial services, and infrastructure sectors.
HOW MUCH IS ANTHROPIC WORTH
Anthropic has reached a valuation of $380 billion, but investors would like to see it rise to $800 billion, also because the startup is considering an initial public offering, possibly in October. Annualized revenues have grown from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to about $30 billion. Recently, it received an investment commitment of up to $40 billion from Google, and one of up to $25 billion from Amazon.
