Featured Article

Anthropic’s $5B, 4-year plan to take on OpenAI

Anthropic plans to train a powerful model with billions in new funding

Comment

Anthropic logo
Image Credits: Anthropic (opens in a new window)

AI research startup Anthropic aims to raise as much as $5 billion over the next two years to take on rival OpenAI and enter over a dozen major industries, according to company documents obtained by TechCrunch.

A pitch deck for Anthropic’s Series C fundraising round discloses these and other long-term goals for the company, which was founded in 2020 by former OpenAI researchers.

In the deck, Anthropic says that it plans to build a “frontier model” — tentatively called “Claude-Next” — 10 times more capable than today’s most powerful AI, but that this will require a billion dollars in spending over the next 18 months.

When contacted for comment, an Anthropic spokesperson said: “We are planning additional product announcements and will be talking about them soon.”

The Information reported in early March that Anthropic was seeking to raise $300 million at $4.1 billion valuation, bringing its total raised to $1.3 billion. The deck confirms that target number, though only half was raised at the time of the document’s creation from a “confidential investor.”

Anthropic describes the frontier model as a “next-gen algorithm for AI self-teaching,” making reference to an AI training technique it developed called “constitutional AI.” At a high level, constitutional AI seeks to provide a way to align AI with human intentions — letting systems respond to questions and perform tasks using a simple set of guiding principles.

Anthropic estimates its frontier model will require on the order of 10^25 FLOPs, or floating point operations — several orders of magnitude larger than even the biggest models today. Of course, how this translates to computation time depends on the speed and scale of the system doing the computation; Anthropic implies (in the deck) it relies on clusters with “tens of thousands of GPUs.”

This frontier model could be used to build virtual assistants that can answer emails, perform research and generate art, books and more, some of which we have already gotten a taste of with the likes of GPT-4 and other large language models.

“These models could begin to automate large portions of the economy,” the pitch deck reads. “We believe that companies that train the best 2025/26 models will be too far ahead for anyone to catch up in subsequent cycles.”

The frontier model is the successor to Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot that can be instructed to perform a range of tasks, including searching across documents, summarizing, writing and coding, and answering questions about particular topics. In these ways, it’s similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But Anthropic makes the case that Claude is — thanks to constitutional AI — “much less likely to produce harmful outputs,” “easier to converse with” and “more steerable.”

Anthropic released Claude commercially in March following a closed beta late last year, allowing around 15 partners initial access. It counts among its beta users and potential customers the following industries (with the asterisk indicating that a human is in the loop to supervise the model):

  • Legal document summary and analysis*
  • Medical patient records and analysis*
  • Customer service emails and chat
  • Coding models for consumers and B2B
  • Productivity-related search, document editing and content generation*
  • Chatbot for public Q&A and advice
  • Search employing natural language responses
  • HR tasks like job descriptions and interview analysis*
  • Therapy and coaching
  • Virtual assistants*
  • Education at all levels*

Dario Amodei, the former VP of research at OpenAI, launched Anthropic in 2021 as a public benefit corporation, taking with him a number of OpenAI employees, including OpenAI’s former policy lead Jack Clark. Amodei split from OpenAI after a disagreement over the company’s direction, namely the startup’s increasingly commercial focus.

Anthropic now competes with OpenAI as well as startups like Cohere and AI21 Labs, all of which are developing and productizing their own text-generating — and in some cases image-generating — AI systems. OpenAI has by far raised the most in terms of capital, recently securing a reported $10 billion from Microsoft at a $29 billion.

“Anthropic has been heavily focused on research for the first year and a half of its existence, but we have been convinced of the necessity of commercialization, which we fully committed to in September [2022],” the pitch deck reads. “We’ve developed a strategy for go-to-market and initial product specialization that fits with our core expertise, brand and where we see adoption occurring over the next 12 months.”

The pitch deck reveals that Alameda Research Ventures, the sister firm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency startup FTX, was a “silent investor” in Anthropic with “non-voting” shares — responsible for spearheading Anthropic’s $580 million Series B round. Anthropic expects Alameda’s shares to be disposed of in bankruptcy proceedings within the next few years.

Google is also among Anthropic’s investors, having pledged $300 million in Anthropic for a 10% stake in the startup. Under the terms of the deal, which was first reported by the Financial Times, Anthropic agreed to make Google Cloud its “preferred cloud provider” with the companies “co-develop[ing] AI computing systems.”

Other Anthropic backers include James McClave, Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and founding Skype engineer Jaan Tallinn.

More TechCrunch

On Friday, Pal Kovacs was listening to the long-awaited new album from rock and metal giants Bring Me The Horizon when he noticed a strange sound at the end of…

Rock band’s hidden hacking-themed website gets hacked

Jan Leike, a leading AI researcher who earlier this month resigned from OpenAI before publicly criticizing the company’s approach to AI safety, has joined OpenAI rival Anthropic to lead a…

Anthropic hires former OpenAI safety lead to head up new team

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the long-term implications of Synapse’s bankruptcy on the fintech sector, Majority’s impressive ARR milestone, and more!  To get a roundup of…

The demise of BaaS fintech Synapse could derail the funding prospects for other startups in the space

YouTube’s free Playables don’t directly challenge the app store model or break Apple’s rules. However, they do compete with the App Store’s free games.

YouTube’s free games catalog ‘Playables’ rolls out to all users

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

2 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

OpenAI has formed a new committee to oversee “critical” safety and security decisions related to the company’s projects and operations. But, in a move that’s sure to raise the ire…

OpenAI’s new safety committee is made up of all insiders

Time is running out for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to secure their early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! With only four days left until the May 31 deadline, now is…

Early bird gets the savings — 4 days left for Disrupt sale

AI may not be up to the task of replacing Google Search just yet, but it can be useful in more specific contexts — including handling the drudgery that comes…

Skej’s AI meeting scheduling assistant works like adding an EA to your email

Faircado has built a browser extension that suggests pre-owned alternatives for ecommerce listings.

Faircado raises $3M to nudge people to buy pre-owned goods

Tumblr, the blogging site acquired twice, is launching its “Communities” feature in open beta, the Tumblr Labs division has announced. The feature offers a dedicated space for users to connect…

Tumblr launches its semi-private Communities in open beta

Remittances from workers in the U.S. to their families and friends in Latin America amounted to $155 billion in 2023. With such a huge opportunity, banks, money transfer companies, retailers,…

Félix Pago raises $15.5 million to help Latino workers send money home via WhatsApp

Google said today it’s adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of…

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

The dynamic duo behind the Grammy Award–winning music group the Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, are set to bring their entrepreneurial expertise to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Known for their…

The Chainsmokers light up Disrupt 2024

The deal will give LumApps a big nest egg to make acquisitions and scale its business.

LumApps, the French ‘intranet super app,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Featured Article

More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Nubank is taking its first tentative steps into the mobile network realm, as the NYSE-traded Brazilian neobank rolls out an eSIM (embedded SIM) service for travelers. The service will give customers access to 10GB of free roaming internet in more than 40 countries without having to switch out their own existing physical SIM card or…

10 hours ago
More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50M from MARS Unicorn Fund.

MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

India’s Adani Group is in discussions to venture into digital payments and e-commerce, according to a report.

Adani looks to battle Reliance, Walmart in India’s e-commerce, payments race, report says

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet…

Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet

A data protection taskforce that’s spent over a year considering how the European Union’s data protection rulebook applies to OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT, reported preliminary conclusions Friday. The top-line takeaway…

EU’s ChatGPT taskforce offers first look at detangling the AI chatbot’s privacy compliance

Here’s a shoutout to LatAm early-stage startup founders! We want YOU to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. But you’d better hurry — time is running…

LatAm startups: Apply to Startup Battlefield 200

The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price…

5 days left to get your early-bird Disrupt passes

Venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2 billion raised across some 850 funding rounds.

Spanish startups reached €100 billion in aggregate value last year

Featured Article

Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

James Khatiblou, the owner and CEO of Onyx Motorbikes, was watching his e-bike startup fall apart.  Onyx was being evicted from its warehouse in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. The company’s unpaid bills were stacking up. Its chief operating officer had abruptly resigned. A shipment of around 100 CTY2 dirt bikes from Chinese supplier Suzhou…

1 day ago
Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

Featured Article

Iyo thinks its gen AI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Iyo represents a third form factor in the push to deliver standalone generative AI devices: Bluetooth earbuds.

1 day ago
Iyo thinks its gen AI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Arati Prabhakar, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Women in AI: Arati Prabhakar thinks it’s crucial to get AI ‘right’

AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of. If you’re selling sneakers on an online marketplace…

Doly lets you generate 3D product videos from your iPhone

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has raised $6 billion in a new funding round, it said today, as Musk shores up capital to aggressively compete with rivals including OpenAI, Microsoft,…

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B from Valor, a16z, and Sequoia

Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to use fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to take its EV rental service into Southeast Asia early next year, TechCrunch has…

Indian EV startup Zypp Electric secures backing to fund expansion to Southeast Asia

Last month, one of the Bay Area’s better-known early-stage venture capital firms, Uncork Capital, marked its 20th anniversary with a party in a renovated church in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood,…

A venture capital firm looks back on changing norms, from board seats to backing rival startups