Anthropic weighs $50B raise at $900B valuation — more than double its February round
The Claude maker has received multiple preemptive offers in the $850B–$900B range and is expected to decide at a May board meeting, per sources.
Anthropic has received multiple preemptive offers to raise $40 billion to $50 billion at a valuation between $850 billion and $900 billion, according to six sources familiar with the matter. TechCrunch reports the company is expected to decide whether to proceed at a board meeting in May.
The figures represent more than a doubling of Anthropic’s $380 billion valuation from its February Series G, and would put it at or above OpenAI’s $852 billion post-money valuation from the same month.
The revenue story
Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate surpassed $30 billion earlier this month, up from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. Sources told TechCrunch the current run rate is closer to $40 billion, driven largely by Claude Code and Cowork, the company’s AI coding platforms.
Investor demand is reportedly far exceeding the round size. One institutional investor prepared to commit $5 billion has not yet secured a meeting with CFO Krishna Rao, per TechCrunch’s sources.
Timeline and pressure
- February 2026: Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G at $380 billion valuation.
- April 14: Bloomberg and Business Insider first reported preemptive bids at $800 billion; at that time, Anthropic had not committed to a raise.
- Late April: Valuation offers have risen into the $850 billion–$900 billion range.
- May (expected): Board meeting to finalize decision on round size and valuation.
The company is described as “finding it difficult to resist the pressure” to raise, with the round potentially serving as a final private financing before an IPO.
Why it matters
This is the clearest signal yet that the frontier-lab valuation race is now decoupled from product differentiation. Anthropic and OpenAI are raising at near-parity valuations despite different go-to-market strategies, different policy stances (Anthropic declined Pentagon classified-network access last week), and different revenue bases. Investors are pricing in total addressable market expansion—finance, healthcare, life sciences—not current performance. If Anthropic closes at $900 billion two months after raising at $380 billion, it suggests the private markets believe frontier AI labs are in a winner-take-most endgame, and seat allocation matters more than price.