Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude chatbot, is in advanced talks to raise $3-5 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at $170 billion, according to multiple reports.
Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and UAE’s MGX are among the sovereign wealth funds in discussions to participate in the round, alongside Singapore’s GIC and lead investor Iconiq Capital. Existing investor Amazon is also expected to join the funding round.
The reported valuation represents nearly triple Anthropic’s $61.5 billion mark from its $3.5 billion Series E in March, as the company seeks large-scale capital to compete with rivals like OpenAI, which was valued at $300 billion earlier this year. Anthropic has reportedly surpassed $4 billion in annual recurring revenue this year as enterprise adoption of AI accelerates.
The funding discussions come amid controversy over leaked comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that have drawn criticism from various quarters in the region.
In an internal memo first reported by Wired, Anthropic CEO made remarks about accessing what he called “a truly giant amount of capital in the Middle East, easily $100 billion or more,” while suggesting the company faced competitive pressure to tap into regional funding pools to “stay on the frontier” of AI development.
The CEO also indicated that Anthropic would limit any Gulf investment arrangements to purely financial terms, without operational influence or data center presence for regional investors.
If completed, this would mark one of the largest AI funding deals to date.
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