Anthropic Raises $65B, Surpassing OpenAI With $965B Valuation Anthropic’s latest funding round has turned an already feverish AI arms race into a contest over trillion‑dollar territory, elevating the Claude maker above rival OpenAI and rattling private markets in the process.

Building toward a record‑setting round

Anthropic’s rapid rise accelerated through successive funding rounds in 2025 and early 2026, with private secondary markets already implying valuations close to $1 trillion by April as revenue rocketed from $9 billion to $30 billion annual run rate in a single quarter. On May 28, the company formally announced a $65 billion Series H round at a $965 billion post‑money valuation, a deal widely reported as allowing Anthropic to “overtake OpenAI as the most valuable AI startup.”

Anthropic’s own announcement framed the raise as fuel to “advance our safety and interpretability research, expand compute to meet growing demand for Claude, and scale the products and partnerships our customers rely on,” noting its run‑rate revenue had crossed $47 billion earlier in the month.

Market and product momentum

Tech and business outlets underscored the competitive stakes. TechCrunch highlighted that Anthropic “has snagged $65 billion in funding at a $965 billion post‑money valuation … what could be the AI startup’s last private fundraising before debuting on the public markets,” while AI Magazine described how the round “pushes Anthropic ahead of OpenAI, as it nears trillion dollar valuation & eyes profitability in 2028.”

The funding coincided with the release of Claude Opus 4.8, described by Business Insider as a “modest but tangible improvement” in coding, reasoning, and knowledge work, reinforcing Anthropic’s pitch that Claude is becoming “increasingly indispensable” to global enterprise customers.

Investors, partners, and fallout in private markets

Strategic backers have seen outsized gains. One Business Insider analysis noted that Amazon’s original $8 billion Anthropic investment has swelled into a stake worth roughly $74.2 billion on paper, reflecting the startup’s leap from a $61.5 billion valuation last year to $183 billion, $380 billion, and now $965 billion.

At the same time, Anthropic has moved to tighten control ahead of an expected 2026 IPO. Earlier in May, it publicly named eight “unauthorized secondary market platforms” and warned that any sale or transfer of its stock via those venues was void, a first for a major AI company and a move that “turned boilerplate legal language into a market‑moving event.” After backlash, including criticism from Hiive’s CEO that Anthropic had not contacted his firm before “their aggressive new stance,” the lab quietly cut the list from eight platforms to four.

Together, the massive raise, sharpened compliance stance, and escalating rivalry with OpenAI signal that Anthropic is entering its pre‑IPO phase not just as a technical contender, but as the market’s dominant pure‑play AI bet.

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