In the quiet days before Christmas last year, when most venture capitalists had retreated to holiday escapes in Aspen or Jackson Hole, Lightspeed Venture Partners’ investing team was contemplating a bid for a piece of OpenAI rival Anthropic.

The venture capital firm approached Anthropic with an offer to lead a multibillion-dollar investment, according to a person familiar with the matter. An agreement quickly took shape: a $2 billion funding round at a $60 billion valuation, tripling what the startup was worth a year earlier. By early January, the deal was effectively done.

With $25 billion under management, Lightspeed is part of a rarified strata of VC firms willing and able to back tech’s hottest, and most expensive, companies. In addition to Anthropic, Lightspeed has recently participated in a large funding round for artificial intelligence company Databricks Inc. that valued it at $62 billion, as well as an investment in Elon Musk’s xAI at a $50 billion valuation.

Source: FINANCE.YAHOO