AI unicorn Anthropic raises over $25 billion, valued at $350 billion

Yesterday, according to the FT, US AI super-unicornsAnthropicis in the midst of a round totaling more thanUS$25 billion (about RMB 174.21 billion)(used form a nominal expression)financing. The round is expected to boost its valuation to about $350 billion (roughly Rs. 24,389.0 billion), a doubling of its $170 billion (roughly Rs. 118.461 billion) valuation from last September.

A significant portion of this round of financing will come fromMicrosoft and NVIDIA have previously announced investments thatThe total financing is then $10 billion higher than the last time it was announced. Last November, Microsoft separately committed to investing in AnthropicUS$5 billion (about RMB 34.84 billion) and US$10 billion (about RMB 69.68 billion).

In addition, Sequoia Capital, a well-known U.S. venture capital institution, plans to invest in Anthropic for the first time, and will likely “bet heavily” with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and the U.S. investment agency Coatue to lead Anthropic's round of financing.

Sequoia's entry into Anthropic at this time represents a change in its investment logic in the AI space. Previously, venture capitalists did not invest in competitors in the same field at the same time, but the huge financial opportunities in AI are changing this practice.

In this round, VCs and other investors will commit to AnthropicAt least $10 billionThe size of Sequoia's investment has not yet been disclosed. Among them, GIC, Coatue two will invest 1.5 billion U.S. dollars each, Sequoia's investment size has not been disclosed.

Negotiations for this financing are still ongoing and the final amount is still subject to change. anthropic has not yet decided which investors to bring in.However, the round is expected to close in the coming weeks.

Anthropic's latest round of funding comes at a time of rapid growth.Its annualized revenue (ARR) has grown from $1 billion a year ago to $10 billion today.

Over the past 1 year, Anthropic has made widely recognized accomplishments on both the model and product side.

Anthropic's Claude series of models continues to iterate, upgrading from version 3.7 to the latest version 4.5, with significant improvements in programming and Agent capabilities, enabling more productive scenarios in theEnd-to-end, long timeComplex tasks can be accomplished in an efficient manner.

In his area of programming specialization, Claude is not always at the top of the list, but has a better reputation in the developer community.

On the product side, Anthropic madeClaude CodeIn February 2025, Claude Code was released along with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and has since quickly become a breakout hit in developer circles.

As an AI programming assistant that automates engineering tasks, reads and writes code libraries, and runs tests, Claude Code uses a command line interface familiar to developers, and also continues to make progress in context persistence, Agent capabilities, and experience optimization.

In January, Anthropic also launched a graphical UI version of Claude Code - theCoworkClaude Code's Agent capabilities are now available to more people with non-technical backgrounds. Today, more people from non-technical backgrounds can also use Claude Code's Agent capabilities for non-programming tasks such as organizing files and crawling web pages.

In addition, Anthropic seeks to define the open ecology of the Agent track. in October 2025, Anthropic launched theAgent SkillsThe concept was officially released as an open standard in December of the same year, in an attempt to equip intelligences with modular capabilities similar to “skill packages”, which can be encapsulated, reused, shared and combined.

Agent Skills are essentially a folder-like structure of commands, resources, and optional scripts, and Claude automatically identifies and loads the relevant skills on demand based on the task at hand, allowing for repeatable, combinable, and specialized task-execution capabilities that aren't driven by cue words every time.

Anthropic is gearing up for an IPO, which could take place as early as this year. anthropic has already hired a law firm to carry out pre-preparation work and has made initial contact with a number of investment banks regarding the listing.

Conclusion: Anthropic's differentiated route is recognized by the market

Judging from the size of the round, the lineup of participants, and the jump in valuation, it is clear that the capital markets recognize Anthropic's strategic value.

Unlike OpenAI, which emphasizes more on generic conversations and C-suite traffic paths, Anthropic's focus is more on the to B market, with enterprise-levelProductivity tools, programming and code generation, secure and controlled modeling capabilities, and other directions.

The annualized revenue of $10 billion also confirms the commercial viability of this choice from the side. As you can see, AI is not just a race for breakout products, but can also be a contest to embed enterprise workflows, improve efficiency, and create long-term value.

Source: Smart Stuff