Investors near close on funding that would value Anthropic above $30B

Anthropic is nearing a financing round that may exceed $30 billion and value the company above $900 billion, according to Bloomberg reporting published May 22. The round could close as soon as next week, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter. Separate reporting in May also tied Anthropic to a nearly $45 billion compute commitment with SpaceX and a $1.8 billion cloud agreement with Akamai Technologies. Taken together, the reported transactions show how much capital frontier AI companies are trying to lock up for both equity and infrastructure. ### How large is the financing Anthropic is trying to close? Bloomberg reported on May 22 that Anthropic could raise more than $30 billion at a valuation above $900 billion. Yahoo Finance, republishing Bloomberg, said the company was expected to close the round as soon as next week. Bloomberg described the terms as not yet final and attributed the details to people familiar with the matter. (bloomberg.com) The reported valuation would place Anthropic among the most highly valued private technology companies. TechTimes, also citing Bloomberg, said the deal would put the Claude developer ahead of OpenAI among private AI startups if completed. That characterization remains contingent on the round closing on the reported terms. (bloomberg.com) ### What is known about the SpaceX compute arrangement? Bloomberg reported on May 20 that Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX nearly $45 billion over three years for computing resources. Yahoo Finance, summarizing the report, said the arrangement would require monthly payments of about $1.25 billion through May 2029, citing disclosures tied to SpaceX’s IPO filing. (techtimes.com) CNBC reported on May 6 that Anthropic had announced a deal to use all of the compute capacity at SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. CNBC said the agreement gave Anthropic access to more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity and that Anthropic had also expressed interest in working with SpaceX on multiple gigawatts of compute capacity in space. ### Where does Akamai fit into Anthropic’s capacity buildout? (bloomberg.com) Akamai said on May 7 that a “leading frontier model provider” had committed $1.8 billion over seven years for Cloud Infrastructure Services. Chief Executive Tom Leighton said in the earnings release that the contract further validated Akamai’s position as an infrastructure provider in the AI market. Akamai did not name the customer in that statement. (cnbc.com) Bloomberg reported on May 8 that the customer was Anthropic, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters, in a follow-on item carrying Bloomberg’s report, said the deal was intended to meet surging demand for Anthropic’s AI software. Both companies were reported to have declined comment on the identification. ### Why are these deals being discussed together? (akamai.com) The timing links them. Bloomberg’s May 22 funding report came after earlier May reports on Anthropic’s infrastructure commitments with SpaceX and Akamai, making the financing and compute buildout part of the same stretch of disclosures and reporting. The contract sizes also help explain the capital demand. (bloomberg.com) Akamai’s disclosed agreement runs seven years and totals $1.8 billion, while the SpaceX arrangement was reported at nearly $45 billion over three years. Those figures indicate that access to data-center capacity is being contracted on a scale closer to long-term industrial procurement than ordinary cloud usage. That last point is an inference from the reported contract durations and values, not a statement either company made. (bloomberg.com) ### What should readers watch next? Next week is the first immediate milestone. Bloomberg said Anthropic’s financing could close as soon as next week, which would determine whether the reported valuation above $900 billion holds. May 2029 is the end date attached to the reported SpaceX payment schedule, while Akamai has already said its unnamed frontier-model contract runs seven years from the May 7 disclosure. (akamai.com) Any formal closing announcement from Anthropic, SpaceX filing updates, or future Akamai disclosures would provide the next hard details on counterparties, payment terms and capacity delivery. (finance.yahoo.com) (bloomberg.com)