Sequoia reportedly joins Anthropic funding round

According to a report by the Financial Times, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is joining a major funding round for Anthropic. The artificial intelligence startup is aiming to raise $25 billion or more, which would value the company at $350 billion. This represents a significant jump from its $170 billion valuation from four months ago. Earlier reports had placed the target round size at $10 billion.

Sequoia’s participation represents a departure from the traditional VC taboo—the industry norm of avoiding backing competing companies. Sequoia is already invested in both OpenAI and xAI, making Anthropic the third major competitor in its portfolio. This overlap is highly unusual in Silicon Valley. During a high-profile lawsuit by Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed potential conflicts of interest. Altman noted that investors with ongoing access to confidential information would face restrictions “if they made non-passive investments in OpenAI’s competitors.” He described this policy as an industry standard protection against the misuse of sensitive data. In this context, non-passive investments refer to active involvement such as board seats or information rights.

The financial breakdown of the reported round includes:

• $1.5 billion each from Singapore’s GIC and U.S. investor Coatue, who are leading the round.
• Up to $15 billion combined from Microsoft and Nvidia.
• $10 billion or more from venture capital firms and other investors.

This reported investment contrasts with Sequoia’s historical approach to portfolio conflicts. In 2020, Sequoia walked away from its $21 million investment in payments company Finix after determining the startup competed with Stripe, another portfolio company. Sequoia forfeited its shares and gave up its board seat and information rights, despite having recently led Finix’s $35 million Series B round. The shift in strategy comes after leadership changes at Sequoia, where former global steward Roelof Botha was replaced by co-leaders Alfred Lin and Pat Grady. Lin has previously expressed strong support for Altman, publicly stating he would eagerly back Altman’s next major venture after Altman was briefly ousted from OpenAI in November 2023. Meanwhile, Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO that could come as soon as this year.

Why it matters

Sequoia’s move signals a shift in venture capital norms, as the firm is now backing multiple competing AI giants despite historical taboos against funding rivals in the same sector.