FT: ChatGPT creator rival Anthropic to raise $20 billion in capital - double expected - due to investor frenzy

American artificial intelligence developer Anthropic is raising about $20 billion from venture capitalists and other investors. This is double the company's initial goal and indicates high interest in the startup, which is one of the main competitors of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, the Financial Times writes , citing sources familiar with the situation.

The deal is close to completion and will value Anthropic at $350 billion. The company initially planned to raise about $10 billion to finance expansion plans, but the amount has doubled due to high demand from investors. According to one of the participants in the funding round, overall interest in the deal exceeded the initial goal by five to six times.

Anthropic could receive its first $10–15 billion as early as Tuesday, and plans to complete the fundraising in the coming weeks. The deal is being led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and US investment firm Coatue. Sequoia Capital is also making a major investment. Existing investors including Iconiq Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, G Squared and Factorial Funds are expected to participate.

In addition to the $20 billion from financial groups, Microsoft and Nvidia have committed to invest up to $15 billion in Anthropic. In parallel with raising funds, the company is preparing for a possible initial public offering (IPO), which could take place as early as this year. Anthropic hired law firm Wilson Sonsini to do the preparatory work and held preliminary discussions with banks about going public.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was an early employee of OpenAI but left the company in 2020 to found Anthropic after disagreements with OpenAI chief Sam Altman over the direction of AI development and security measures.

On Monday, Amodei published a 20,000-word essay in which he said humanity "needs to wake up" to the potentially catastrophic risks posed by powerful artificial intelligence systems. He wrote:

“Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is far from clear that our social, political and technological systems have the maturity to wield it.”