After Amazon announced last week its intention to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic's latest funding round, new reports suggest that Anthropic is in talks with Google and other investors to secure at least an additional $2 billion. The company's valuation is expected to land between $20 billion and $30 billion.
According to The Information, Google, which acquired nearly 10% of Anthropic's shares in 2022, is likely to participate in this $2 billion funding round. Anthropic's current annual recurring revenue (ARR) is nearing $100 million, translating to monthly earnings of over $8 million.
If valued at $20 billion, this would peg the company's valuation at 200 times its revenue, a multiple even higher than that of OpenAI. Anthropic projects its ARR to reach $200 million by the end of this year, amounting to monthly earnings of $17 million. By 2024, the company aims to achieve an ARR of $500 million, or monthly earnings surpassing $40 million. This growth is anticipated to stem primarily from its collaboration with Amazon, where Anthropic plans to sell its AI through Amazon's cloud service to AWS customers.
Currently, research institution LexisNexis, the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater, and the largest independent travel guide publisher Lonely Planet are among those purchasing Anthropic's Claude via Amazon's AWS cloud service.
In comparison, OpenAI, valued close to $30 billion, has already surpassed an ARR of $1 billion. Recent rumors suggest that OpenAI is selling shares at a valuation of $90 billion and is in discussions with Apple's former chief designer, Jony Ive's design studio LoveFrom, to co-create an AI version of an iPhone-like hardware product. SoftBank's Masayoshi Son plans to invest $1 billion in this project.
Analysts believe that OpenAI should not be viewed merely as a software or API company. Its future could see it evolving into a massive consumer goods company, offering an ecosystem of software and hardware products similar to Apple's. Given the extensive collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI, other tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta are unlikely to integrate OpenAI's models into their respective devices. This might be a driving factor behind the recent rumors of OpenAI's collaboration with Jony Ive.
Indeed, the fusion of AI and hardware seems to be heating up. As mentioned in a recent article titled "Character AI's New Valuation Might Exceed $50 Billion, Synthetic Social Networks on the Horizon," Humane, founded by former Apple executives, has launched its hardware product, Humane Ai Pin, with Sam Altman being one of its investors.
Meanwhile, Rewind, aiming to create a "copilot for your mind," has announced its wearable hardware product, the Rewind Pendant, which resembles a pendant on a necklace.
Rewind's founder, Dan Siroker, explained that the Pendant can capture everything you say and hear in the real world, transcribing, encrypting, and storing it locally on your phone. To protect privacy, the Pendant offers features ensuring that no one is recorded without consent.
Siroker envisions the Pendant turning Rewind into a personalized AI, genuinely supporting users based on their interactions and experiences. The product is currently available for pre-order at $59.
On its official website, Rewind provides potential use cases for the Pendant, such as recalling items purchased at a store, sharing meeting summaries with colleagues, auto-generating to-do lists from verbal commitments, capturing exciting ideas while walking or driving, recording memorable quotes from children for future reminiscing, and more.
