Anthropic and OpenAI launch enterprise AI joint ventures

On Monday, Anthropic announced a joint venture focused on deploying enterprise AI services. According to The Wall Street Journal, the new venture is valued at $1.5 billion, which includes a $300 million commitment each from Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman. Alternative asset managers are investment firms that manage non-traditional assets, such as private equity. Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs are founding partners in the venture. The entity is also backed by a group of venture capital firms, hedge funds, and private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green, and Sequoia Capital.

The announcement comes as Anthropic’s competitor, OpenAI, prepares a similar move. Bloomberg reported that OpenAI is raising $4 billion from 19 investors for its own venture, called The Development Company, which is reportedly valued at $10 billion. Named investors in OpenAI’s venture include TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital. There is no apparent overlap in investment between the OpenAI venture and Anthropic’s competitor.

Both initiatives aim to raise capital from alternative asset managers to establish new channels for enterprise AI deals. The ventures will presumably secure preferred sales access to their investors’ portfolio companies, while the investors capture value from the resulting contracts. This capital will fund a “forward-deployed engineer” (FDE) model—a strategy popularized by software company Palantir where engineers work directly with clients to integrate tools into existing workflows. Describing this approach, Anthropic stated: “An engagement might begin with the company’s engineering team sitting down with clinicians and IT staff to build tools that fit into the workflows that staff already use… Engagements like this will run across mid-sized companies across industries, each shaped by the people closest to the work.”

These joint ventures are launching as both AI labs continue to raise capital at a rapid pace. At the end of March, OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding at an $852 billion valuation. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reported last week that Anthropic is in the final stages of its own funding round, seeking $50 billion in new funding against a $900 billion valuation.

Why it matters

These ventures create new channels for enterprise AI deals by leveraging alternative asset managers, allowing labs to scale engineering resources through the forward-deployed engineer model. This structure allows investors to capture more value from resulting contracts while presumably granting the AI labs preferred sales access to the investors’ portfolio companies.