Anthropic has acquired Seattle-based startup Vercept and will shut down its product next month, the companies confirmed on Wednesday.
Vercept built tools designed to help AI systems handle complex, multi-step tasks on a computer. Its main product, Vy, allowed an AI agent in the cloud to operate a remote Apple MacBook, completing tasks across live applications.
Now, that product will close on March 25 as the team joins Anthropic.
The startup had already been in the spotlight last year after one of its co-founders, Matt Deitke, left to join Meta. He reportedly negotiated a $250 million pay package to work in Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, drawing attention across the AI industry.
Anthropic said the deal strengthens its push into what it calls “computer use”, enabling its Claude models to work inside real software, much like a person at a keyboard.
In a statement announcing the acquisition, the company said: “Today, we’re announcing that Anthropic has acquired Vercept to help us push those capabilities further.”
Vercept emerged from A12, a Seattle-based AI incubator linked to the Allen Institute for AI. Its founders had previously worked as researchers at the institute.
Over the past year, the startup drew attention in the region and beyond, raising $50 million in total funding, according to chief executive Kiana Ehsani.
The investor list included high-profile technology figures such as former Eric Schmidt chief executive Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean of Google DeepMind, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Arash Ferdowsi, co-founder of Dropbox. A12’s Seth Bannon led the investment and sat on Vercept’s board.
Not all founders will move to Anthropic. The company named Ehsani, Luca Weihs and Ross Girshick among those joining, while others are staying behind.
A former co-founder, Oren Etzioni, also known as the founding head of the Allen Institute and now a professor at the University of Washington, didn’t feel good about how the process unfolded.
Writing on LinkedIn, Etzioni said: “After a little bit more than a year, Vercept is throwing in the towel and giving their customers 30 days to get off the platform. Sad. A fantastic team is joining Anthropic. I wish them the very best!”
He later added: “I’m pleased to have gotten a positive return but obviously disappointed that after just a little over a year with so much traction, and such a fantastic team, we’re basically throwing in the towel.”
His comment triggered a public exchange with Bannon, who defended the founders. In response, Bannon wrote: “… you disparaged the heroic work of the founders for achieving an outcome most could only dream of,” accusing Etzioni of unfair criticism.
The discussion escalated, with both sides trading allegations in the comment thread.
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. However, Etzioni said he received a positive return on his investment.
For Anthropic, this is another step in building out its technical bench. In December, it acquired coding agent engine Bun to support Claude Code. The company says its latest model, Claude Sonnet 4.6, has sharply improved its ability to navigate software environments.
On OSWorld, a benchmark used to test computer-use skills, Anthropic said its Sonnet models improved from under 15% in late 2024 to 72.5% today.
Ehsani, for her part, described the decision as strategic. In her LinkedIn post, she wrote: “The choices were clear: we could build independently and work toward the same vision as two separate versions of it, or join forces with an incredible team and accelerate that vision into reality. The decision became an easy choice.”
