Valued at $380 billion, Anthropic secures another huge round of financing

Anthropic has raised another large sum of money.

On February 12, 2026, local time, this "biggest rival" of OpenAI completed a Series G financing of $30 billion, with a post - investment valuation reaching an astonishing $380 billion.

What's even more surprising is that the lead investors in this round of financing are not the venture capital giants in Silicon Valley, but the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and the hedge fund Coatue - two investment institutions known for their prudent yet decisive investment strategies.

Facing OpenAI's valuation of $800 billion, Anthropic's valuation of $380 billion still seems inferior. However, it's difficult to simply compare these two companies based on numbers. Because in essence, these two companies represent a head - on confrontation between two different business philosophies in the AI industry.

Anthropic, which has shown great momentum in the B - side market and code - related fields, seems to be gradually finding a path more suitable for itself.

01

The Logic of Quick Profits for a "Slow - moving Company"

No matter how much money is raised, even in the AI industry, one has to return to the most fundamental valuation factor - revenue.

Data shows that Anthropic's monthly active users can generate $211 in revenue, while OpenAI's weekly active users can only bring in $25.

Behind this huge difference lies two completely different business models.

OpenAI follows the "low - margin, high - volume" route: ChatGPT costs $20 per month, and it has over 100 million users, making a big splash. Anthropic, on the other hand, has chosen the "high - quality, high - price" approach: Claude mainly serves enterprise customers. Although the number of users is much smaller, the average customer price is astonishingly high.

Chris Emanuel, the head of GIC's technology investment, revealed a key piece of information in the investment statement: "Anthropic's prudent approach to AI development is changing the way businesses operate." Notice the word - "prudent". In an industry where speed is king, it's quite interesting that investors are actually paying for "prudence".

Anthropic is betting that it's easier and more sustainable to make money from enterprise customers.

A person in charge of enterprise AI applications shared his experience on LinkedIn: After their company switched from OpenAI's API to Claude Enterprise Edition, although the cost increased by 40%, because Claude is more accurate in processing legal documents and financial statements, it reduced a large amount of manual review costs, "resulting in cost savings in the end".

This is Anthropic's moat:

It may not be the cheapest, but it's probably the most trustworthy.

02

Investors' Confidence Behind the $380 Billion Valuation

In terms of valuation multiples, Anthropic's forward revenue multiple is 43.9 times, while OpenAI's is 31 times. Investors are willing to pay a higher premium for Anthropic, indicating that they believe although this company's business model started slowly, it has greater long - term potential.

The lineup of investors in this round of financing is also quite interesting, including GIC (Singapore's sovereign wealth fund), Coatue (a hedge fund giant), D.E. Shaw (a quantitative fund), and MGX (the UAE's sovereign wealth fund). Most of them are institutional investors seeking long - term and stable returns, not the kind of venture capitalists chasing quick doubling of returns.

An analyst from Acquinox Capital pointed out sharply: "OpenAI monetizes through end - user products with a subscription model; Anthropic monetizes through the enterprise infrastructure layer. The former expands faster, while the latter is more sustainable."

This reminds me of the classic comparison in the history of enterprise software: Facebook and Salesforce. Facebook has more users, faster growth, and a higher valuation, but the loyalty and payment ability of enterprise customers have made Salesforce a more stable business.

Anthropic is betting that it can replicate Salesforce's success path in the new AI track.

Judging from the recent market reaction, this bet might be right.

The Financial Times reported that Anthropic has selected a law firm to start preparing for an IPO and may go public as early as 2026. If it really goes public successfully, it will be the ultimate verification of this $380 billion valuation.

03

The New Rules of the AI Battle

The deepest meaning of this round of financing is not how much money Anthropic has raised, but that it has changed the financing rules of the entire AI industry.

What does $30 billion mean? This is one of the largest single - round private financings in the history of technology, higher than the total valuation of most unicorn companies. The existence of this large sum of money itself is a deterrent to competitors.

An industry analysis report from MLQ.ai pointed out: "The multi - billion - dollar commitments from sovereign wealth funds and technology giants mean that scale pressure forces competitors to match this financing level; otherwise, they will face a competitive disadvantage."

This means that the threshold for AI startups has been completely raised. In the past, a team could raise a few hundred million dollars and compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. Now, without the support of tens of billions of dollars, they can't even get to the table.

But this also exposes a deeper problem:

Is the valuation of the entire AI industry overheated?

An analyst from Find Articles raised a sharp question: "Maintaining a high valuation will require continuous improvement in model quality, a significant reduction in inference costs, and a clearer monetization path beyond API consumption." In other words, Anthropic must prove that it's worth the price, and prove it quickly.

Judging from user feedback, Claude indeed performs excellently in enterprise application scenarios. A financial analyst on Reddit shared that when using Claude to process 100,000 lines of financial data analysis, the accuracy rate is 15% higher than that of other AI tools. "Although it's expensive, the cost of errors is lower."

But the question is, how long can this technological leading edge be maintained?

OpenAI, Google, and Meta are all investing heavily in R & D, and the technological gap may be easily closed at any time. At that time, how can Anthropic maintain its high valuation? This is a question that both investors and the market are concerned about.

This $30 - billion financing is, on the surface, a victory for Anthropic. In fact, it's a sign that the entire AI industry has entered a new stage. From a technology competition to a business model competition, from burning money to acquire customers to value realization, the rules of the game are quietly changing.

Anthropic has used a huge check to tell the market that the future of AI may not belong to the fastest one, but to the steadiest one.

This article is from the WeChat official account "GeekPark" (ID: geekpark). Author: Hua Lin Wu Wang, Editor: Jing Yu. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.