Anthropic and OpenAI are launching joint ventures for enterprise AI services

Anthropic on Monday announced a joint venture focused on deploying AI services for enterprises. Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs will be founding partners in the new venture, which is backed by a group of venture capital funds, hedge funds and private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green and Sequoia Capital.

The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report news of the partnership, reported the value of the new venture at $1.5 billion, which includes a $300 million commitment from Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman.

The announcement comes as Anthropic’s main competitor prepares to make a similar move. Just hours before Anthropy’s announcement, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was raising money for a new venture called The Development Company, along very similar lines. The OpenAI project will operate on a larger scale, raising $4 billion from 19 investors for a valuation of $10 billion. Investors mentioned include TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital, with no apparent investment overlap between the OpenAI project and competitor Anthropic.

The general logic of the two projects is the same, raising funds from alternative asset managers to create new channels for enterprise AI deals. It is assumed that projects will gain preferred sales access to their investors’ portfolio companies, while investors will receive greater value from any resulting contracts.

The new capital will also allow for more engineering resources to be allocated per capita, embracing the forward-engineer (FDE) model popularized by Palantir.

As Anthropic said in its announcement: “Engagement may start with the company’s engineering team sitting down with doctors and IT staff to build tools that fit into the workflows employees are already using… Such engagements will extend across mid-sized companies across industries, each shaped by the people closest to the business.”

The new projects come as the two AI labs are raising donations at a dizzying pace, while circling potential IPOs. OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding at the end of March, against a valuation of $852 billion. TechCrunch reported last week that Anthropic is in the final stages of its funding round, seeking $50 billion in new funding at a valuation of $900 billion.