en.Wedoany.com Reported - Menlo Ventures recently announced the raising of a $3 billion fund, the largest in its 50-year history, driven primarily by the strong performance of its artificial intelligence portfolio, particularly its investment in Anthropic. Sources told Bloomberg that Menlo's stake in Anthropic is currently valued at approximately $14 billion.
According to insiders at Menlo, when the company decided to bet on Anthropic in 2024, leading the model maker's $750 million Series D round made the team "nervous enough to sweat." At the time, the round quadrupled Anthropic's valuation to $18.4 billion. However, the way this investment was raised carried higher risk. The venture capital industry was just recovering from the post-pandemic winter, with major investment firms like SoftBank and Tiger Global still licking their wounds, and no one in the market could easily write a $750 million check.
Menlo had already participated in Anthropic's Series C round before the company launched any products, becoming an early investor. By 2024, long before the launch of Claude Code and Claude Mythos, Anthropic had secured a $4 billion cooperation agreement with Amazon and was being courted by venture capital firms. The company, founded by former OpenAI researchers and led by CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, has become a star in the artificial intelligence field, with many startups founded by OpenAI alumni now showing similar trends.
Menlo structured approximately $500 million of this deal as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a one-time investment vehicle that pools funds from multiple sources for a single transaction. According to Forbes at the time, Menlo also contributed $250 million from its own fund and insider capital, bringing the total round to $750 million.
Since then, SPVs in the AI field have become common. Anthropic issued a warning last month, stating that all unauthorized SPVs and secondary markets claiming to sell its stock are "scams." But for investors who participated in Menlo's authorized deal in 2024, this aggressive push yielded substantial returns. Menlo subsequently invested in Anthropic's Series E and Series F rounds as well.
Additionally, in 2024, Menlo jointly launched a $100 million startup fund with Anthropic, named Anthology. According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to TechCrunch, the fund has deployed nearly $250 million in capital to date. It has supported over 60 companies, providing them with access to Anthropic's leadership and Claude credits, and has already generated multiple returns, including Graphite, acquired by Cursor, and Astrix Security, acquired by Cisco. The fund allows Menlo to stay at the forefront of AI startups, categories, and technologies, with its portfolio including multiple AI companies such as OpenRouter, Higgsfield, Legora, Lovable, and OpenEvidence.
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