Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic is reportedly engaged in talks to secure a $2 billion in funding.
The deal has not been finalized, and the valuation for the company has not been set, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Oct. 4), citing unnamed sources. A deal could value Anthropic at $30 billion.
Anthropic did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
These talks come shortly after Amazon agreed to invest up to $4 billion in the company, according to the report.
Anthropic is part of a new wave of startups focusing on building foundation models, which are vital for many AI tools, the report said. These models require substantial resources, making significant financing crucial for companies like Anthropic and its competitor OpenAI.
The talks between Anthropic and potential investors underscore the fierce competition among tech giants vying for a stake in the future of AI, per the report. Earlier this year, Alphabet’s Google participated in a $450 million funding round for Anthropic. Furthermore, Amazon’s commitment positions it as Anthropic’s primary cloud computing provider and chip supplier.
Microsoft has made significant investments in OpenAI, a rival to Anthropic in generative AI. With a pledge of over $10 billion, Microsoft aims to solidify its position in the AI landscape and drive innovation in the field.
Founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI, Anthropic has positioned itself as a company focused on responsible and safe technology, the report said. One of its notable products is Claude, a chatbot designed to be a kinder and gentler form of AI. Claude can perform various written tasks, including summarizing, searching, answering questions and coding.
Claude has been trained to be nicer through reinforcement learning and is built atop a model architecture known as Constitutional AI, which gives an AI model a written list of principles and instructs it to follow those principles, PYMNTS reported in July. Then, it tasks a second model with policing the first based on its adherence to the principles.
When announcing the launch of Claude 2 in July, Anthropic compared the tool to a “friendly, enthusiastic colleague or personal assistant who can be instructed in natural language to help you with many tasks.”
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Corporate delinquencies are reportedly at the highest rate they’ve reached in eight years.
The delinquency rate for loans from U.S. banks to both U.S. and foreign companies rose to 1.3% at the end of 2024, a figure that was the highest since the first quarter of 2017 but well below the 5% seen during the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Feb. 17), citing data from BankRegData.
The total amount of bank debt on which U.S. business borrowers were at least one month late reached $28 billion, up $2.2 billion from three months earlier and up $5.4 billion from a year earlier, according to the report.
The report attributed the rise to interest rates that remain high, surprising some observers who expected them to fall this year. A pickup in inflation in January and concerns about the impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs have delayed further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the report said.
Corporate bank loans tend to be variable rate, so the expected decline in interest rates would have given some relief to borrowers, the report said.
The data from BankRegData does not include loans from direct lenders and private credit funds, per the report.
It was reported in January that the growth in commercial bank loans was at the slowest it’s been since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Commercial bank loans grew by around 2.7% in 2024, which was only somewhat faster than the 2.3% rise seen in 2023.
A number of bankers said they hoped to see loan growth later this year, citing optimism among clients and other indicators.
Bank of America said during a January earnings call that commercial loans were up 5% year over year in the fourth quarter and that loan and deposit growth in the current year should outpace last year’s.
J.P. Morgan Chase said during a January earnings call that there has been improvement in business sentiment and that balance sheets at small businesses are healthy.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said during a January earnings call that in the United States, “growth is not only being driven by the higher-end consumer but also by a strong and innovative corporate sector.”