AI giant Anthropic has overtaken rival OpenAI to become the world's most valuable artificial intelligence startup after a blockbuster $65 billion Series H financing round, which pushed its valuation to $965 billion. Anthropic's increased valuation surpassed OpenAI's $852 billion valuation, marking a significant milestone in the AI industry.
Funding Round Details
According to a report by CNBC, the latest funding round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, nearly tripling Anthropic's valuation from $380 billion in February. The financing also included $15 billion of previously committed investments, with $5 billion coming from Amazon. This massive influx of capital underscores investor confidence in Anthropic's growth trajectory.
Revenue Growth and Key Product
Anthropic also reported a $47 billion revenue run rate, up from $30 billion earlier this year and $10 billion in 2025. Most of this growth is driven by its popular AI coding assistant Claude Code, which has become a staple tool for many enterprises. The tool's widespread adoption has been a key factor in Anthropic's rapid expansion.
New AI Model Releases
Anthropic released its latest AI model on May 28. The company introduced Claude Opus 4.8 along with Claude Mythos Preview, a cybersecurity-focused system available to select companies. Anthropic CFO Krishan Rai stated, "Claude is increasingly indispensable to our growing global community of customers... This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens."
Performance Improvements
Anthropic claims that Opus 4.8 is significantly better at flagging uncertainties in its own work and is much less likely to make unsupported claims. Internal evaluations found that the model is about four times less likely than its predecessor, Opus 4.7, to let flaws in its written code pass unremarked. The model also outperformed competitors on several key industry benchmarks, excelling in financial analysis, reasoning, and agentic coding.
Competition with OpenAI
Anthropic's valuation now surpasses OpenAI's $852 billion, achieved in March after its own record-breaking $122 billion funding round. Both companies are preparing for IPOs later this year, with OpenAI expected to file its confidential prospectus in the coming weeks. This rivalry continues to drive innovation and investment in the AI sector.
CEO on Explosive Growth
Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei jokingly acknowledged that his company's explosive growth may be "too hard to handle." According to a report by Business Insider, speaking at the Code with Claude developer conference in San Francisco along with co-founder Daniela Amodei, he revealed that Anthropic witnessed 80x year-over-year growth in revenue and usage in Q1 2026. Amodei quipped that he would prefer a "mere 10x" growth, since the current pace has stretched the company's computing resources far beyond the original plan. Originally, Anthropic had expected anywhere from "a little" growth to 10x, making the actual surge a logistical challenge.
