KraneShares Gets Direct AI Stake as Anthropic’s Valuation Hits $61.5 Billion
Anthropic has closed a $3.5 billion funding round at a $61.5 billion valuation, Yahoo Finance has reported. The high Anthropic valuation includes the new funding. It comes from the fast growth that the AI company has recorded. In 2024, Anthropic reported $1 billion in annual revenue run rate. This number has risen by about 30% this year.
KraneShares AI Strategy
The new Anthropic funding round saw KraneShares-owned exchange traded funds get a stake in the OpenAI rival. Expansion of KraneShares AI and Technology ETF (AGIX) to include a direct stake in Anthropic reflects a new dimension for individual investors that seek to pursue investment in high-value private companies.
AGIX becomes the second-largest listed ETF to hold direct private equity securities in the US. The first was Alger AI Enablers & Adopters ETF that holds a direct stake in SB Technology. At the moment, less than 5% of its AI investments have been placed in Anthropic.
AGIX cannot increase its AI investment portfolio to more than 15% due to restrictions provided by rules that govern how much open-ended trading entities can invest in illiquid assets.Most funds make unlisted investment indirectly through special purpose vehicles or replication strategies. This option is informed by the large liquidity gap that exists between private assets whose shares rarely change hands and publicly traded ETFs.
KraneShares addressed the liquidity challenge between AGIX shares and Anthropic stake by forming an internal fair-market-value committee that will determine asset value daily. Bloomberg Intelligence Analyst David Cohne says direct investments have the potential to reduce costs and offer more transparency.
“We’ll continue to see more ETFs investing in private assets, whether that’s through a direct investment or a special purpose vehicle — there’s certainly an appetite for it,” Cohne said.
Anthropic Expansion Plans
The recent Anthropic investment is expected to spur competition with OpenAI. The latter is already talking to investors to increase its valuation to $300 billion. These deals reflect the enthusiasm among tech investors to channel huge sums of money into top AI firms despite the recent emergence of smaller firms like DeepSeek.
Anthropic will use the new capital to create the next generation of its AI models. The company will also spend the funding to advance research and expand its computing capacity. The company has plans to fast track its expansion efforts to Europe and Asia.
“This investment fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve, while deepening our understanding of how these systems work. These capabilities are driving remarkable outcomes for our customers as our business and consumer usage continue to grow rapidly,” Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao said in a statement.
The recent funding comes months after two big techs that have previously invested in Anthropic made additional investments. Google announced a $1 billion investment in the company in January this year while Amazon.com made a $4 billion investment in November 2024. Anthropic is powering Amazon’s AI-enabled Alexa assistant that the e-commerce giant launched recently.
AI Industry Outlook
Anthropic unveiled an advanced version of its AI model, Sonnet. It also launched a new AI agent that’s capable of automating software coding tasks. Anthropic was founded by previous OpenAI employees in 2021.
Since then, the AI company has positioned itself as a safety-conscious and reliable brand that users can trust. Anthropic had planned to raise $2 billion in the recent financing round. It surpassed its target after the round was oversubscribed.
The AI company faces stiff competition from big players in the AI industry like OpenAI, Meta, and Google. As the competition heats up, its ability to differentiate itself through enterprise adoption, safety, and reasoning capabilities will shape its success in the long run.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led the latest funding round. Other tech investors that participated in the Series E funding round were Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and General Catalyst.
