Anthropic

Anthropic PBC
Type	Private Public-benefit corporation
Industry	Artificial intelligence
Founded	2021
Founders	Dario Amodei (CEO) Daniela Amodei (President) Tom Brown Chris Olah Sam McCandlish Jack Clark Jared Kaplan Benjamin Mann
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, United States
Key people	Dario Amodei (CEO) Daniela Amodei (President) Mike Krieger (CPO) Krishna Rao (CFO) Jason Clinton (CISO) Jan Leike (Co-lead of Alignment Science)
Products	Claude (AI assistant) Claude API Claude Code
Revenue	$5+ billion ARR (August 2025)
Employees	1,300 (2025)
Website	anthropic.com

Anthropic PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) safety and research company founded in 2021. The company develops and deploys large language models (LLMs), most notably the Claude family of AI assistants, with a focus on AI safety and alignment to ensure that advanced AI systems are reliable, interpretable, and steerable. As of September 2025, Anthropic is valued at $183 billion, making it the fourth most valuable private company globally.

History

Founding and Early Development (2021-2022)

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by eight former employees of OpenAI, including siblings Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei. Dario, who served as OpenAI's Vice President of Research, became Anthropic's CEO, while Daniela, formerly VP of Safety & Policy at OpenAI, became President. The founders left OpenAI due to directional differences, particularly concerns about AI safety and the pace of AI development.

The company was initially incorporated as a Delaware public benefit corporation (PBC), a structure that enables directors to balance stockholders' financial interests with its public benefit purpose of "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity."

In May 2021, Anthropic raised $124 million in Series A funding led by Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype. In April 2022, the company raised $580 million in Series B funding, including $500 million from FTX prior to its collapse.

The company spent 2022 developing the first version of Claude but chose not to release it publicly, citing the need for internal safety testing and a desire to avoid initiating a potentially hazardous race in AI capabilities development.

Growth and Claude Releases (2023-2024)

In March 2023, Anthropic publicly launched Claude, its first AI assistant, marking the company's entry into the competitive AI assistant market. In July 2023, the company was named to the White House's voluntary AI safety commitments alongside other leading labs like OpenAI, Google, and Meta.

Throughout 2023, the company secured major investments and partnerships:

• May 2023: Raised $450 million in Series C funding led by Spark Capital
• September 2023: Amazon announced an initial investment of up to $4 billion, making AWS Anthropic's primary cloud provider
• October 2023: Google invested $2 billion in the company

In March 2024, Anthropic released the Claude 3 family of models (Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus), with Opus outperforming OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini Ultra on various benchmarks. June 2024 saw the release of Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which demonstrated significant improvements over Claude 3 Opus despite being a smaller model, alongside the introduction of the Artifacts feature for real-time code and content generation.

In November 2024, Amazon invested an additional $4 billion, bringing its total investment to $8 billion.

Recent Developments (2025)

In 2025, Anthropic experienced rapid growth and significant developments:

• March 2025: Raised $3.5 billion in Series E funding at a $61.5 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
• May 2025: Released Claude 4 series (Opus 4 and Sonnet 4) with enhanced capabilities and Claude Code for developers
• July 2025: Accepted a $200 million contract from the United States Department of Defense for military AI applications
• August 2025: Released Claude Opus 4.1 with further improvements
• September 2025: Completed Series F funding of $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation, co-led by ICONIQ Capital, Fidelity Management, and Lightspeed Venture Partners
• September 2025: Released Claude Sonnet 4.5, marketed as its strongest model for coding, agents, and computer use

The company reported that its annualized run-rate revenue grew from $1 billion at the beginning of 2025 to over $5 billion by August 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing technology companies in history.

Technology

Claude AI Models

Claude is Anthropic's family of large language models designed to be helpful, harmless, and honest. The models are generative pre-trained transformers that have been fine-tuned using Constitutional AI and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

Model Generations

Claude Model Families

Generation	Models	Release Date	Key Features
Claude 1	Claude 1.0, 1.3, Claude Instant	March 2023	Initial release; Claude Instant as lightweight version
Claude 2	Claude 2.0, 2.1	July 2023	100,000 token context window, public web interface at Claude.ai
Claude 3	Haiku, Sonnet, Opus	March 2024	200,000 token context, vision capabilities, multimodal support
Claude 3.5	Sonnet, Haiku	June-December 2024	Computer use capability, improved coding, Artifacts feature
Claude 3.7	Sonnet	February 2025	Hybrid reasoning model, Claude Code early preview
Claude 4	Sonnet 4, Opus 4	May 2025	Enhanced capabilities, MCP connector, extended thinking with tool use
Claude 4.1	Opus 4.1	August 2025	Performance improvements
Claude 4.5	Sonnet 4.5	September 2025	Best-in-class for coding/agents/computer use

Constitutional AI

Constitutional AI (CAI) is Anthropic's proprietary methodology for training AI systems to be aligned with human values. The approach involves providing AI systems with a set of principles (a "constitution") that guide their behavior.

The CAI process involves two main phases:

1. Supervised Learning Phase: The model generates self-critiques and revisions based on constitutional principles
2. Reinforcement Learning Phase: The model is trained using AI feedback (RLAIF - Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback) rather than solely human feedback

The constitution draws from various sources including:

• The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Trust and safety best practices
• Principles from other AI research labs
• Platform guidelines from technology companies

Interpretability Research

Anthropic conducts extensive research into interpretability, the field of understanding the internal workings of complex AI models. In 2024, the company used a compute-intensive technique called "dictionary learning" to identify millions of features (patterns corresponding to concepts) within the Claude 3 Sonnet model. This research aims to better understand, monitor, and control model behavior to enhance safety.

Corporate Structure and Governance

Public Benefit Corporation

Anthropic operates as a public benefit corporation (PBC), legally requiring it to balance stockholder interests with its public benefit mission. The company must regularly report on how it promotes public benefits to its owners.

Long-Term Benefit Trust

Anthropic established a unique governance structure called the Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), a purpose trust designed to ensure the company remains focused on "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity." The Trust holds Class T shares that allow it to elect directors to Anthropic's board.

As of April 2025, the Trust members include:

• Neil Buddy Shah
• Kanika Bahl
• Zach Robinson
• Richard Fontaine

Board of Directors

Current board members include:

• Dario Amodei (CEO and Co-Founder)
• Daniela Amodei (President and Co-Founder)
• Yasmin Razavi
• Jay Kreps
• Reed Hastings

Funding and Investors

Funding History

Anthropic Funding Rounds

Round	Date	Amount	Lead Investors	Valuation
Series A	May 2021	$124M	Jaan Tallinn	Undisclosed
Series B	April 2022	$580M	FTX, Google	Undisclosed
Series C	May 2023	$450M	Spark Capital	$4.6B
Series D	September 2023	$4B (Amazon)	Amazon	$18.5B
Google Investment	October 2023	$2B	Google	N/A
Series E	March 2025	$3.5B	Lightspeed Venture Partners	$61.5B
Series F	September 2025	$13B	ICONIQ, Fidelity, Lightspeed	$183B

Total funding raised: $27.3 billion (as of September 2025)

Major Investors

• Amazon: $8 billion total investment
• Google: $2 billion investment
• Lightspeed Venture Partners: Led multiple rounds
• Fidelity Management: Co-led Series F
• ICONIQ Capital: Led Series F
• Other notable investors include: Salesforce Ventures, Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, BlackRock, Qatar Investment Authority

Products and Services

Claude AI Assistant

The consumer-facing Claude assistant is available through:

• Claude.ai: Web-based interface launched July 2023
• Claude iOS/Android apps: Mobile applications
• Claude Pro/Max: Premium subscription tiers with enhanced capabilities

Claude API

The Claude API provides programmatic access to Claude models for developers and businesses, supporting:

• Text generation and analysis
• Code generation and debugging
• Vision capabilities (image analysis)
• Extended context windows (up to 1 million tokens for specific use cases)

Claude Code

Launched in February 2025 as an early preview and fully released in May 2025, Claude Code is an agentic coding assistant that enables developers to delegate coding tasks. It can read/write code, run tests, and use the command line with developer oversight. Claude Code has generated over $500 million in run-rate revenue with usage growing more than 10x in three months as of September 2025.

Computer Use

A beta feature released in 2024 that enables Claude to take screenshots, click, and type text, allowing it to interact with computer interfaces.

Partnerships

Amazon Web Services Partnership

In November 2024, Anthropic named AWS as its primary training partner and primary cloud provider. Key aspects of the partnership include:

• Anthropic uses AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips for training and deploying models
• AWS customers access Claude models through Amazon Bedrock
• Anthropic committed to making AWS its primary infrastructure provider

Google Cloud Partnership

Anthropic's models are available through Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform, providing enterprise customers with access to Claude capabilities within Google's cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft Partnership

In September 2025, Claude models were integrated into Microsoft 365 Copilot, expanding Claude's enterprise reach.

Palantir Partnership

In November 2024, Anthropic partnered with Palantir Technologies and Amazon Web Services to provide Claude models to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies for use in classified environments.

Business and Operations

Anthropic has experienced rapid enterprise adoption, growing from under 1,000 business customers two years ago to over 300,000 as of 2025. The company has expanded its global presence with offices in Dublin, London, Tokyo, and Zurich.

Enterprise Customers

Major enterprise customers and partners include:

• Pfizer: Uses Claude to accelerate research and reduce operational costs
• United Airlines: Used Claude to personalize customer messages and improve response speeds
• Zoom: Integrated Claude for various business applications
• Snowflake: Utilizes Claude for data analytics
• Thomson Reuters: CoCounsel tax platform uses Claude for tax professionals
• Novo Nordisk: Reduced clinical study report writing from 12 weeks to 10 minutes
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Reduced customer scam losses by 50%
• Rakuten: Cut feature development time by 79% using Claude Code
• Replit: Integrated Claude into Agent for code generation

Financial Performance

• 2022: $10 million
• 2023: $100 million
• 2024: $1 billion
• 2025 (projected): $2.2 billion
• August 2025 run-rate: $5+ billion annualized

Business Metrics

• Over 300,000 business customers
• 7x growth in large accounts (>$100,000 ARR) year-over-year
• Claude Code alone generates $500+ million in run-rate revenue

Safety and Research

Responsible Scaling Policy

Anthropic published a Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) in September 2023 that establishes safety levels for AI systems based on their capabilities. Models are classified into different Anthropic Safety Levels (ASL), with escalating controls as model risk increases. The policy was updated in October 2024 and May 2025.

Research Areas

Key research focus areas include:

• AI Alignment: Ensuring AI systems behave as intended
• Mechanistic Interpretability: Understanding how AI systems make decisions
• Constitutional AI: Developing value-aligned AI systems
• Safety Research: Mitigating risks from advanced AI systems
• Deceptive Behavior Studies: Research on "sleeper agent" behaviors that can persist through safety fine-tuning

Safety Initiatives

• Red Teaming: Regular testing for vulnerabilities and potential misuse
• External Audits: Collaboration with organizations like the US AI Safety Institute and UK Safety Institute
• Constitutional Classifiers: Developing defenses against jailbreaking attempts

Legal and Regulatory Issues

Copyright Lawsuits

In October 2023, Anthropic was sued by music publishers including Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO for alleged copyright infringement of song lyrics used in training data. A judge later denied a request for a preliminary injunction while litigation continued.

In September 2025, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit brought by authors who alleged the company had illegally downloaded millions of pirated books from shadow libraries like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror to train its AI models. The settlement, representing the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history, includes payment of approximately $3,000 per book for an estimated 500,000 works, plus interest.

Regulatory Scrutiny

The company's partnerships with Amazon and Google have attracted regulatory attention:

• The UK Competition and Markets Authority investigated Amazon's partnership but concluded it couldn't be examined under current merger rules
• The Federal Trade Commission has reviewed Big Tech AI investments but has not taken enforcement action

Key People

The leadership team is composed of experts with experience across leading tech companies and research institutions:

• Dario Amodei: Co-founder and CEO. Former Vice President of Research at OpenAI. Holds a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Princeton University.
• Daniela Amodei: Co-founder and President. Previously held roles at OpenAI and Stripe.
• Mike Krieger: Chief Product Officer. Co-founder of Instagram. Joined May 2024.
• Jack Clark: Co-founder and Head of Policy. Former Policy Director at OpenAI.
• Tom Brown: Co-founder and Head of Core Resources. Previously worked on GPT-3 at OpenAI and at Google DeepMind.
• Krishna Rao: Chief Financial Officer
• Jason Clinton: Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Former Staff Software Engineer at Google.
• Jan Leike: Co-lead of the Alignment Science team. Former alignment researcher at OpenAI.
• Chris Ciauri: Managing Director of International (appointed 2025)

Competition

Anthropic's main competitors in the AI space include:

• OpenAI: Creator of ChatGPT and GPT models, valued at $300 billion
• Google DeepMind: Developer of Gemini models
• xAI: Elon Musk's AI company, valued at $113 billion
• Mistral AI: European AI startup
• Cohere: Enterprise-focused AI company

See Also

• Artificial intelligence
• Large language model
• OpenAI
• ChatGPT
• Constitutional AI
• AI safety
• Amazon Bedrock
• Vertex AI