This places the artificial intelligence firm among the world’s most valuable private technology companies ahead of a possible stock market debut.

The Series H round drew backing from investment firms including Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital, Capital Group, Coatue and D1 Capital Partners.

Investors such as Baillie Gifford, Blackstone, Brookfield, DST Global and Fidelity Management & Research also joined the round.

The funding package also includes $15 billion in previously committed investments from large cloud companies, including $5 billion from Amazon announced earlier this year.

Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron joined the round as strategic infrastructure partners.

With the funding, Anthropic plans to expand computing capacity, grow its Claude products and continue research into safety and interpretability.

The company announced the funding on the same day it released Claude Opus 4.8, its latest model focused on coding, advanced reasoning and what it described as stronger honesty and self-correction abilities.

Anthropic has expanded rapidly since its last fundraising round in February, helped by rising demand from business customers using Claude Code and other enterprise tools. The company said its annualised revenue run rate passed $47 billion earlier this month.

“Claude is increasingly indispensable to our growing global community of customers, and we work tirelessly to make tools like Claude Code and Cowork more helpful, more powerful, and more adaptable to their needs,” said Krishna Rao, chief financial officer of Anthropic.

“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens.”

The company also said it recently signed new agreements with Amazon, Google, Broadcom and SpaceX to secure more computing power as demand for Claude grows.

Under those agreements, Amazon will provide up to five gigawatts of additional capacity, while Google and Broadcom will supply next-generation TPU infrastructure. SpaceX will also provide access to GPU capacity through its Colossus systems.

Anthropic revealed that Claude is now available across Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, with AWS remaining its main cloud and training partner.

“Claude’s latest advancements have driven large-scale adoption among the world’s most demanding organisations. This momentum positions Anthropic to lead the next phase of AI innovation and capture the enormous opportunity ahead,” said Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital.

Marc Stad, managing partner at Dragoneer, said, “The technological progress we are seeing right now is breathtaking. And we believe that we are still in the earliest days of both the development and commercialisation of this technology.”

Neil Mehta, founder and managing partner at Greenoaks, added, “Rarely has a company’s culture, mission, and commercial momentum reinforced each other so completely. We are honoured to deepen our partnership.”

With competition increasing among leading artificial intelligence companies seeking more users, stronger computing infrastructure and fresh investment before entering public markets, Anthropic’s latest raise will strengthen its place.

Earlier this year, OpenAI secured a funding round valued at $852 billion after investment, while Elon Musk’s xAI, now merged with SpaceX, has reportedly targeted a $2 trillion valuation ahead of a future public offering.

With the investment, the firm is returning to its roots following years of challenges, including the collapse of FTX and a major structural overhaul.

The venture firm announced a $750 million fund for Series A startups and a $200 million fund dedicated to seed-stage ventures. 

Same sizes as the ones launched in 2021, the current fund is an intentional nod to stability after what many investors have described as one of Sequoia’s most challenging periods.

“Markets go up and down, but our strategy remains consistent. We’re always looking for outlier founders with ideas to build generational businesses,” said Bogomil Balkansky, partner at Sequoia’s early-stage investment team.

The firm’s current goal of early-stage investing seeks to capture promising startups before valuations spiral. With AI startup prices increasing to high levels, Sequoia wants to get in early, when ownership stakes are more meaningful and pricing is still grounded in potential rather than later.

This disciplined focus is a cultural and operational reset for the firm. After losing over $200 million in its failed investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX and spinning off its India and China arms, now Peak XV Partners and HongShan, Sequoia has bolstered its focus on the U.S. and European markets. 

The firm’s internal restructuring aims to simplify decision-making and strengthen engagement with founders from the earliest stages of their journey.

“Our ambition has always been and continues to be to identify these founders as early as possible; to roll up our sleeves and be a very active participant in their company-building journey,” Balkansky added.

Sequoia’s recent portfolio choices show a strong tilt toward AI infrastructure and developer tools rather than purely consumer-facing products. 

Among its notable early investments are Xbow, focused on AI security testing; Traversal, a reliability engineering firm; and Reflection AI, an open-source alternative to DeepSeek. 

Sequoia’s introduction of Reflection AI to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang reportedly led to a $500 million investment from the chipmaker.

The firm’s earlier investments in Clay, Harvey, n8n, Sierra, and Temporal have also multiplied in value, further validating its early-entry strategy. 

Beyond capital, Sequoia continues to provide hands-on support, helping with executive recruitment, customer connections, and strategic partnerships.

While the firm’s name remains synonymous with success stories like Airbnb, Google, Nvidia, and Stripe, Sequoia is acutely aware that reputation alone cannot sustain its legacy. 

In its newly renovated headquarters, every investor has handwritten a reminder on the wall: “We are only as good as our next investment.”

This simple phrase encapsulates Sequoia’s renewed mindset, a blend of humility and conviction that even with AI exuberance, the firm’s value lies in its ability to spot the next transformative idea before anyone else. The new Sequoia Capital early-stage funds are just right on time.

The fund, which plans to invest between $5 million and $7 million in each of its 10 chosen companies, will bolster Casspi’s growth as a venture capitalist.

Swish Ventures is Casspi’s second fund following the launch of Sheva Capital in 2022, a $36 million fund. With the investment period of Sheva now concluded, Casspi remains involved in managing its portfolio, though he has ruled out raising additional funds under Sheva. “I remain deeply engaged with the growth of our companies, but Sheva will not be expanding further,” Casspi explained in an interview.

Casspi’s new venture fund has already attracted a diverse group of investors, including several founders who were previously supported by Sheva. 

Ophir Ehrlich, founder of EON; Amiram Shachar, founder of Upwind; and Gal Ben-David and Alon Arvatz, co-founders of PointFive, are among those backing Swish Ventures. 

Again, Sequoia Capital has taken on the role of anchor investor in the fund, lending additional credibility and support.

While the focus of Swish Ventures is similar to that of Sheva—investing in startups handled by experienced entrepreneurs with the prospects to disrupt markets—the new fund will narrow its focus to the high-demand sectors of cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI. 

This change comes as these sectors have gained increased attention from investors, particularly in the United States and Israel, where Casspi has based much of his investment activity. 

In Israel, the cybersecurity sector is doing great, drawing huge venture capital funding, with the sector accounting for over 50% of the total venture capital raised by Israeli startups in the first half of 2024, according to Startup Nation Central.

Omri Casspi is positive about these growing fields. He has invested his own capital in Wiz, a leading cybersecurity company, while EON is a portfolio company under Sheva. 

He has also shown interest in innovative companies within the cloud and AI spaces, with his new fund positioning itself to support firms with cutting-edge solutions in these areas.

The trend of athletes transitioning into venture capital continues to grow, with Casspi following in the footsteps of other sports stars. Recently, NBA player Giannis Antetokoumpo entered the VC world, while others such as Serena Williams, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Andre Iguodala have already established their own venture firms.

Casspi’s success in raising $60 million for Swish Ventures places him among a growing group of athletes turning their attention to tech investments.

Omri Casspi, who made history as the first Israeli to play in the NBA and served as captain of Israel’s national basketball team, now oversees a great portfolio with an estimated $125 million in assets under management. 

Known companies under Sheva Capital include Upwind, which has reached a valuation of nearly $900 million, and PointFive, whose founders previously sold a company to Rapid7 and later raised $36 million for their new venture.

Swish Ventures is also expanding its team, appointing Dana Alexandrovich as an operating partner. Alexandrovich, previously the chief operating officer at Microsoft Israel, brings great experience in leading sales operations across the Middle East and Africa, further enhancing the fund’s scale-up in the global market.

This financing round, expected to close in the coming weeks, has been impacted by a rapid escalation in valuation and investment size due to high investor demand. 

Originally pitched at $3 billion with a $15 billion valuation, the deal was quickly adjusted to meet investors’ intense interest surrounding xAI’s potential. 

Notable participants in the funding round include Sequoia Capital, Future Ventures led by Steve Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners, and Gigafund, all closely associated with Elon Musk’s ecosystem.

The investment will likely lead to competition between xAI and OpenAI, another AI company co-founded by Elon Musk.

One key differentiator is xAI’s plan to leverage data from Musk’s other ventures, including Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink, facilitating his vision for xAI to bridge the digital and physical worlds.

This integrated approach could lead to advancements in areas like self-driving cars and robotics.

The success of xAI’s fundraising efforts could also benefit X, Musk’s social media platform. X already uses xAI’s chatbot technology and could potentially gain access to even more sophisticated AI tools in the future.

Grok, xAI’s chatbot, has already found integration with X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, as a paid add-on. Musk’s strategic vision extends beyond chatbots, with plans to incorporate AI insights into Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, enabling advanced tasks in Tesla’s factories by year-end.

With adequate resources at its disposal, xAI can become a major competitor in the field, enhancing various sectors through its unique data-driven approach.

The integration of xAI’s technology across Musk’s ventures, from X’s social media platform to Tesla’s robotics advancements, is a strategy that could potentially bridge the learning gap. 

The implications of AI must also be addressed to ensure its responsible and beneficial use for society.

Founded in 2013, Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers vehicle for hire, micro-mobility, car-sharing, and food delivery services headquartered in Tallinn and operating in over 300 cities in 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia, and Latin America.

Bolt last secured funding in August 2021 at a valuation of over 4 billion euros.

The company will deploy the funding into expanding its transportation and food delivery super app which has more than 100 million users in Europe and Africa. It will also consider venturing into new businesses expanding its range of services.

Speaking on the funding, Markus Villig, CEO, Bolt, said, “We are expanding all the five product lines extremely quickly, developing product R&D and rolling out in new cities.”

 “Over the past eight years, we have developed products that offer better and more affordable alternatives for almost every purpose a private car serves.”

“We’re partnering with cities to help people make the switch towards light vehicles such as scooters and e-bikes and shared mobility options like ride-hailing and car-sharing to transform urban areas back into sustainable, people-friendly spaces.”

“That’s why we’re pleased to announce this new round of funding – the biggest in our history – which will help us build a future in which cities have less congestion, less pollution, and more green spaces where people can easily move around in a safe and sustainable way.”

Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia, said, “We’re excited to deepen our partnership with Markus and Bolt to further their mission to make urban travel affordable, sustainable, and safe.”

 “At Sequoia, we believe in the global potential for technology and entrepreneurship and have been inspired by Bolt’s growth from Tallinn, Estonia to over 400 cities and 100 million customers across Europe and Africa. We’re eager to help them expand their footprint, increase their product offering and improve the quality of life in cities for the long term.”