Friday May 29
FUNDINGAnthropic

Anthropic Tops OpenAI At $965B

28MAY
$965 BILLION!12$$ANTHROPICOPENAI

Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion post-money valuation, eclipsing OpenAI ($852B) for the first time. Memory chip giants Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron joined as strategic infrastructure partners. Run-rate revenue crossed $47B this month. IPO expected this autumn.

2.5x valuation jump in 90 days. $380B in February. $965B now. Three months. The number that matters most: Anthropic just passed OpenAI by $113B.

Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia each wrote checks over $2B. Google pledged up to $40B over time. Amazon added $5B. The new twist is the memory tier joining the cap table. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron together represent the world's HBM supply. They are now financially aligned with Anthropic's compute roadmap, not just selling into it.

For PMs: the lab-stability risk on Claude bets just dropped again. For execs: assume Anthropic and OpenAI both file public S-1s before Q4. For procurement: enterprise pricing power now lives with the lab that's profitable, not the one that's biggest.

full brief & sources

⚡ Why this matters

  • First time Anthropic's valuation has passed OpenAI's. The market called the lead change.
  • Memory chip vendors joining the cap table is a new shape. HBM supply is now strategically aligned to Claude.
  • Last private round before IPO. The public-market comp for AI labs gets set in the next 6 months.

🔍 What happened

  • May 28, 2026. Anthropic closes $65B Series H at $965B post-money.
  • Co-leads: Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital. Each over $2B.
  • Strategic infrastructure partners: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron Technology. First time all three memory giants joined a single AI round.
  • Institutional: Baillie Gifford, Blackstone, Brookfield, Coatue, D1 Capital, D.E. Shaw Ventures, DST Global, Fidelity, Capital Group.
  • Hyperscalers: $5B from Amazon (April commitment), Google pledged up to $40B over time.
  • Run-rate revenue: crossed $47B earlier in May.
  • Prior round: $30B at $380B post-money in February 2026. 2.5x jump in 90 days.
  • OpenAI last priced at $852B in February. Anthropic now ahead by $113B.
  • Expected IPO timing: autumn 2026.

💬 Smart takes

  • Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO, statement): "advance our safety and interpretability research, expand compute to meet growing demand for Claude, and scale the products and partnerships our customers rely on."
  • Korea Herald on the memory deal: SK Hynix and Micron's participation is a defensive move. They get early sight into next-gen HBM bandwidth requirements before competitors.
  • SamMobile: Samsung is the only one of the three with foundry capacity. Anthropic-Samsung scope may extend beyond memory into chip manufacturing.
  • Skeptic: $965B at $47B ARR is 20x revenue. OpenAI sits at $852B with stated 2026 revenue near $20B (≈43x). Anthropic is cheaper on revenue but only because OpenAI got priced last. The IPO will reset both.

🧭 Where this goes

  1. Both labs file public S-1s before Q4 2026.
  2. Memory pricing for HBM4E and beyond gets co-designed with Anthropic's roadmap before Q2 2027.
  3. OpenAI counters with a similarly-sized round at $1T+ valuation by July.
  4. By 2027, the public-market comp on AI labs sits between 15x and 25x ARR. Below that and one lab gets bought.

🎯 Implication

  • For PMs building on Claude: vendor-stability risk just dropped. Lock multi-year API commits at current pricing.
  • For execs choosing AI vendors: the dual-IPO comp means both labs need to keep revenue compounding. Negotiate from a buyer's market through Q3.
  • For investors tracking AI: the memory-chip strategic investor pattern repeats with Samsung Foundry on a major lab deal within 12 months.
·Anthropic - Series H announcement·Bloomberg - $965B eclipses OpenAI·TechCrunch - Nears $1T pre-IPO·Korea Herald - Memory giants invest