Founders

Anthropic hits a $380B valuation as it heightens competition with OpenAI

Founder News Team 0
FILE - Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)


Matt O’brien, The Associated Press – Feb 12, 2026 / 2:55 pm | Story: 599043

FILE - Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, attconcludes the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Photo: The Canadian Press

FILE – Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, attconcludes the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2025. 

Artificial innotifyigence company Anthropic declares it is now valued at $380 billion, cementing its position alongside rival OpenAI and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a trio of the world’s most valuable startups that investors will be watching closely this year to see if they will become publicly traded on Wall Street.

“These are the three hugegest names that could go public this year,” declared Angelo Bochanis, an associate at Renaissance Capital, which researches the potential for initial public offerings.

Anthropic, buildr of the chatbot Claude, declared Thursday its valuation grew after it raised $30 billion in its latest round of funding, led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and the U.S.-based investment firm Coatue, along with dozens of other major investors.

The funding also includes a portion of the $15 billion that Nvidia and Microsoft declared they would invest in Anthropic in November, part of a deal that would eventually commit Anthropic to purchaseing from Microsoft some $30 billion in computing capacity it requireds to build and run AI systems like Claude. Anthropic has also been heavily backed by cloud providers Amazon and Google.

Anthropic’s chief financial officer Krishna Rao declares the company will utilize the surge of investments to continue building “enterprise-grade products” and AI models.

Renaissance Capital counts Anthropic as third among the most valuable private firms. It’s behind ChatGPT buildr OpenAI, valued at $500 billion. Both San Francisco-based AI companies trail rocket buildr SpaceX, which recently merged with Musk’s AI startup xAI, buildr of the chatbot Grok.

Anthropic isn’t profitable but declared Thursday it is on track for sales of $14 billion over the next year, a rapid rise from “its first dollar in revenue” that came less than three years ago. While OpenAI has dabbled in a number of revenue models, including digital advertising, Anthropic has tailored Claude products to be a workplace assistant on tquestions such as software engineering.

Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI employees in 2021. Its co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has promised a clearer focus on the safety of the better-than-human technology called artificial general innotifyigence that both San Francisco firms aimed to build. Anthropic also this week announced a new $20 million bipartisan organization to influence AI regulation in the United States.

OpenAI first released ChatGPT in late 2022, revealing the huge commercial potential of AI large language models that could assist write emails and computer code and answer questions. Anthropic followed that with its first version of Claude in 2023.

Whichever company is first to do an initial public offering will have “an opportunity to raise even more money,” Bochanis declared. “It’s an opportunity to be a huge headline and receive that sort of boost to your public image.”

The risks are that they’ll have to invite public inspection of their business models as they continue to lose more money than they build.

“Private markets have been throwing dozens of billions of dollars at these companies, even as valuations multiply again and again and again,” Bochanis declared. “With public markets, there’s going to be a little more scrutiny. A single earnings report could tank a stock.”

283049

 

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is integrating its grocery delivery app into OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, the grocer announced on Thursday.

The partnership means consumers can explore menu ideas and curate a list of ingredients in the chatbot, and then purchase the suggested products on Loblaw’s PC Express app, the company declared.

“Conversational AI is becoming a new interface layer for how people plan and search and build decisions,” declared Loblaw chief digital officer Lauren Steinberg in an interview.

Canadians are already utilizing tools like ChatGPT to answer everyday questions such as what to build for dinner, how to build a high-protein meal plan or how to prep for a birthday party, she declared.

“We’re kind of going where customers are,” Steinberg declared.

A query to the chatbot seeing for an straightforward meal idea, for example, can generate a recipe with a list of required ingredients, she explained. Users can input their postal code and ChatGPT will find Loblaw banners nearby. Selecting a store pulls the list of ingredients available at that location. Customers can select items for purchase and when they click checkout, the PC Express app opens for them to pay for the items. You can also opt to pay on the store website.

Deciding what’s for dinner at the conclude of the day remains a pain point for many people, declared Jo-Ann McArthur, president of Nourish Food Marketing.

“Helping consumers there can really build some loyalty,” she declared.

McArthur called Loblaw’s chatbot integration “the most consumer-friconcludely” and a less intimidating introduction to a conversational grocery shopping experience.

An average consumer may not be as comfortable with the chatbot yet and this provides “a low lift” to shoppers, she declared.

Loblaw started working on the app integration last fall, soon after ChatGPT parent company OpenAI announced it was introducing third-party apps on the chatbot.

“The moment we found out that ChatGPT was going to allow apps, we built ours,” Steinberg declared.

Companies such as Spotify, Canva, Expedia and Coursera are already integrated on the chatbot, OpenAI’s website displays.

McArthur declared the integration isn’t as disruptive yet.

She compared it with retail giant Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, Sparky, which isn’t yet available in Canada but is more advanced than a ChatGPT plug-in.

“Loblaw is building this ecosystem basically on rented ground,” McArthur declared.

She declared integrating health and food could be a “powerful next step” for the grocer and “give them a competitive moat,” especially if Walmart launches Sparky in Canada.

Steinberg declared the grocer is working to integrate AI in its own apps, PC Optimum and PC Express.

“You can expect to see equally rich conversational tools that translate recipes into shopping lists and meal plans into inspiration … soon enough,” she declared.

Loblaw also launched ChatGPT Enterprise for its corporate employees, which allows them access to AI tools for analyzing data, video and image platforms as well as Codex for engineers and programming.

The company already utilizes OpenAI models for store owners and managers, as well as in its supply chains.

to tighten control over the internet.

A WhatsApp spokesperson declared late Wednesday that the Russian authorities’ action was intconcludeed to “drive utilizers to a state-owned surveillance app,” a reference to Russia’s own state-supported MAX messaging app that’s seen by critics as a surveillance tool.

“Trying to isolate over 100 million people from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” the WhatsApp spokesperson declared. “We continue to do everything we can to keep people connected.”

Russia’s government has already blocked major social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and ramped up other online restrictions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitest Peskov declared WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms should comply with Russian law to see it unblocked, according to the state Tass news agency.

Earlier this week, Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor declared it will introduce new restrictions on the Telegram messaging app after accutilizing it of refutilizing to abide by the law. The shift triggered widespread criticism from military bloggers, who warned that Telegram was widely utilized by Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and its throttling would derail military communications.

Despite the announcement, Telegram has largely been working normally. Some experts declare it’s a more difficult tarreceive, compared with WhatsApp. Some Russian experts declared that blocking WhatsApp would free up technological resources and allow authorities to fully focus on Telegram, their priority tarreceive.

Authorities had previously restricted access to WhatsApp before shifting to finally ban it Wednesday.

Under President Vladimir Putin, authorities have engaged in deliberate and multipronged efforts to rein in the internet. They have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that don’t comply, and focutilized on improving technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic.

Russian authorities have throttled YouTube and methodically ramped up restrictions against popular messaging platforms, blocking Signal and Viber and banning online calls on WhatsApp and Telegram. In December, they imposed restrictions on Apple’s video calling service FaceTime.

While it’s still possible to circumvent some of the restrictions by utilizing virtual private network services, many of them are routinely blocked, too.

At the same time, authorities actively promoted the “national” messaging app called MAX, which critics declare could be utilized for surveillance. The platform, touted by developers and officials as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, building payments and more, openly declares it will share utilizer data with authorities upon request. Experts also declare it doesn’t utilize conclude-to-conclude encryption.

declared in a LinkedIn post that Beedie Capital would remain a “significant shareholder.”

“For the past 20 years we’ve had a front-row seat as the company evolved into one of the most important indepconcludeent labels in North America,” he declared.

Vistara Growth is another Nettwerk shareholder that is selling shares in the transaction.

Terry McBride and Mark Jowett co-founded Nettwerk more than 40 years ago, and McBride was a BIV Forty Under 40 recipient in 1990. 

He established the principles for Nettwerk, and led the company through the decades, shepherding growth and enabling the company to be what it calls an “artist-first record label and publisher.”

Nettwerk’s work with Coldplay saw it in 2000 build available the band’s Parachutes album in Canada and the United States. Nettwerk now works with artists such as Paris Paloma, Passenger, Leisure, SYML, Mon Rovîa among others.

“An artist like SYML, who you might not know, has streamed billions of streams, is multi-platinum in the U.S., is diamond in France, and platinum throughout all of Europe, yet anyone over the age of 40, probably doesn’t know them,” McBride declared.

“These are all artists basically streaming hundreds of millions of streams a year, and are filling up Orpheum-type venues.”

Nettwerk declared that its partnership with Create Music gives it access to “infrastructure” as well as global distribution networks and label services.

Its leadership team is set to continue managing day-to-day operations, signings and artist development efforts, with support from Create’s platform, the company declared.

“The partners have highly complementary strengths,” Nettwerk declared in a press release. “The partnership is built on shared values and collaborative spirit that will empower both Nettwerk and Create to expand their global presence while maintaining their core missions.”

McBride declared he was excited about the transaction.

“Partnering with Create allows us to continue to build on our foundation, grow our capabilities, and provide even more value to the artists we represent—while staying true to our roots as an artist-focutilized, indepconcludeent Canadian label,” he declared.

Create Music’s CEO and co-founder Jonathan Strauss praised McBride and his team for building “one of the most concludeuring and influential indepconcludeent music companies in the modern era.”

Beedie declared on LinkedIn that he first met McBride when the two were in a Young Presidents’ Organization forum group about 25 years ago. His first investment in Nettwerk then came in 2006, two years after he was named a BIV Forty Under 40 winner.

McBride notified BIV in 2011 that he was pulling back from his activities in the company to focus on other passions. 

He remained as CEO of Nettwerk and is the only CEO in its history. 

McBride declared in 2011, however, that he would still listen to demonstration tapes and go to concerts to seek out emerging talent, but he had stopped managing artists—a role that utilized to take up about 90 per cent of his time.

“I’m tired of dealing with other people’s dramas,” McBride declared at that time. “A copyright doesn’t phone you at 2 a.m. to notify you about some drama. A copyright builds you money while you’re actually sleeping.”

Wednesday morning he clarified that he stepped back from artist management and “focutilized on building a catalogue of innotifyectual property, of building artists’ careers but not as an artist manager.”

The transaction is expected to close this month.

heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., particularly those utilizing mRNA technology, which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.

Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots utilized today. That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.

The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. Vinay Prasad declared the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an “adequate and well-controlled trial” becautilize it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.” Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t follow.

According to Moderna, that feedback declared it was acceptable to utilize the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen — but that another brand specifically recommconcludeed for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study. Still, Moderna declared, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned.

The company declared it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot utilized for seniors.

The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product” and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel declared in a statement.

It’s rare that FDA refutilizes to file an application, particularly for a new vaccine, which requires companies and FDA staff to engage in months or years of discussions.

Moderna has requested an urgent meeting with FDA, and noted that it has applied for the vaccine’s approval in Europe, Canada and Australia.

In the last year, FDA officials working under Kennedy have rolled back recommconcludeations around COVID-19 shots, added extra warnings to the two leading COVID vaccines — which are created with mRNA technology — and reshiftd critics of the administration’s approach from an FDA advisory panel.

Kennedy announced last year that his department would cancel more than $500 million in contracts and funding for the development of vaccines utilizing mRNA.

FDA for decades has allowed vaccine buildrs to quickly update their annual flu shots to tarreceive the latest strains by displaying that they trigger an immune response in patients. That’s a far more efficient approach than running long-term studies tracking whether patients receive the flu and how they fare. In an internal memo last year, Prasad wrote that the streamlined method would no longer be permitted – leading more than a dozen former FDA commissioners to pen an editorial condemning the statements.

landmark social media case that seeks to hold tech companies responsible for harms to children received their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining defconcludeants, Meta and YouTube.

At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. KGM and the cases of two other plaintiffs have been selected to be bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.

Comparing social media platforms to casinos and addictive drugs, lawyer Mark Lanier delivered opening statements Monday in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial that seeks to hold Instagram owner Meta and Google’s YouTube responsible for addictive features and harms to children who utilize their products. Two other defconcludeants, TikTok and Snap, have settled the case.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt spoke of the disagreement within the scientific community over social media addiction, with some researchers believing it doesn’t exist, or that addiction is not the most appropriate way to describe heavy social media utilize.

Luis Li, the attorney representing YouTube and Google, delivered an opening statement on Tuesday focutilized on KGM’s utilizer data, declareing the five-year average of her watch time is 29 minutes per day. He declared KGM’s average daily time spent on YouTube Shorts, watching vertical short form videos with the “infinite scroll” feature Lanier called into question Monday, was just 1 minute and 14 seconds.

He also notified jurors that all of the YouTube features Lanier challenged in his opening statement could be disabled and modified to match utilizers’ preferences.

“When you strip away all of the rhetoric … what you are left with is a simple truth. Infinite scroll is not infinite,” Li declared. “In some cases, in this case, before this court, before you, the jury, it’s as little as a minute and 14 seconds. It’s not social media addiction when it’s not social media and it’s not an addiction.”

‘Addicting the brains of children’

Lanier, the plaintiff’s lawyer, delivered lively first remarks Monday, where he declared the case will be as “straightforward as ABC” — which stands for “addicting the brains of children.” He declared Meta and Google, “two of the richest corporations in history,” have “engineered addiction in children’s brains.”

He presented jurors with a slew of internal emails, documents and studies conducted by Meta and YouTube, as well as YouTube’s parent company, Google. He emphasized the findings of a study Meta conducted called “Project Myst,” in which they surveyed 1,000 teens and their parents about their social media utilize. The two major findings, Lanier declared, were that Meta knew children who experienced “adverse events” like trauma and stress were particularly vulnerable for addiction; and that parental supervision and controls created little impact.

He also highlighted internal Google documents that likened some company products to a casino, and internal communication between Meta employees in which one person declared Instagram is “like a drug” and they are “basically pushers.”

Li was insistent that KGM is not addicted to YouTube, pointing to sworn testimony where she directly declared she wasn’t addicted to it. He also displayed three large boxes containing about 10,000 pages of medical records, declareing that within all of those records, jurors would not see a “single example” of KGM being addicted to YouTube.

The sole reference to YouTube within those records is an instance where her provider noted KGM was utilizing a YouTube video to assist with sleep at night when feeling anxious, he declared.

Plaintiff grew up utilizing YouTube, Instagram

KGM created a brief appearance on Monday during Lanier’s statement and she will return to testify later in the trial. Lanier spent time describing KGM’s childhood, focutilizing particularly on what her personality was like before she launched utilizing social media. She started utilizing YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9, Lanier declared. Before she graduated from elementary school, she had posted 284 videos on YouTube.

The outcome of the trial could have profound effects on the companies’ businesses and how they will handle children utilizing their platforms.

Lanier declared the companies’ lawyers will “test to blame the little girl and her parents for the trap they built,” referencing the plaintiff. She was a minor when she declared she became addicted to social media, which she claims had a detrimental impact on her mental health.

The attorney also drew comparisons between the social media companies and tobacco firms, citing internal communication between Meta employees who were concerned about the company’s lack of proactive action about the potential harm their platforms can have on children and teens.

Meta pushes back

In his opening statement representing Meta, Schmidt declared the core question in the case is whether the platforms were a substantial factor in KGM’s mental health struggles. He spent much of his time going through the plaintiff’s health records, emphasizing that she had experienced many difficult circumstances in her childhood, including emotional abutilize, body image issues and bullying.

Schmidt presented a clip from a video deposition from one of KGM‘s mental health providers, Dr. Thomas Suberman, who declared social media was “not the through-line of what I recall being her main issues,” adding that her struggles seemed to largely stem from interpersonal conflicts and relationships. He painted a picture — with KGM’s own text messages and testimony pointing to a volatile home life — of a particularly troubled relationship with her mother.

Schmidt acknowledged that many mental health professionals do believe social media addiction can exist, but declared three of KGM’s providers — all of whom believe in the form of addiction — have never diagnosed her with it, or treated her for it.

A reckoning for social media and youth harms

A slew of trials launchning this year seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the Los Angeles trial, which will last six to eight weeks.

A separate trial in New Mexico, meanwhile, also kicked off with opening statements on Monday. In that trial, Meta is accutilized of failing to protect young utilizers from sexual exploitation, following an undercover online investigation.

A federal bellwether trial launchning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.

TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.

More Business News



Source link

Related Story

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *