Anthropic towards $1.5bn joint venture with Wall Street bigwigs

Anthropic is finalising an agreement to create a new joint venture with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and a handful of other Wall Street firms, with the aim of selling artificial intelligence tools to private-equity backed companies. The announcement is expected later today. Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman are the promoters of the deal and are each expected to invest around $300 million.

Goldman Sachs will also be a founding investor, with an investment of about $150 million. General Atlantic and other companies are also involved in the transaction. In total, a commitment of about $1.5 billion is expected.

Already last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic was planning its own investment to support the project. The investors intend to set up a company to act as an advisory arm for Anthropic and help teach companies, including those in the portfolio of private equity firms, how to incorporate Ai into their businesses.

OpenAI has also been in talks to form a rival joint venture with private-equity companies for a similar project. Both AI giants are focusing their efforts on selling AI tools to companies and see those backed by private-equity firms as a prime target, as many are already focused on improving efficiency and reducing costs. Anthropic is widely considered the industry leader in the enterprise market, although OpenAI is working hard to catch up.

Anthropic, the object of attention of important investors, is aiming for a stock market listing that could take place as early as this year. The company's turnover has skyrocketed in recent months thanks to the success of its coding tool, Claude Code. News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.