After betting the firm on Anthropic, Menlo Ventures raises victorious $3B fund

Menlo Ventures announced $3 cardinal successful funds connected Tuesday, the largest rise successful its 50-year history, driven successful ample portion by its AI portfolio, particularly Anthropic. Its involvement successful the exemplary shaper is present worthy astir $14 billion, sources told Bloomberg.

To perceive the folks astatine Menlo speech astir it, they were white-knuckling it erstwhile they made a bet-the-firm $750 cardinal concern successful Anthropic successful 2024, preemptively starring the exemplary maker’s Series D. At the time, that circular quadrupled the startup’s valuation to $18.4 billion.

While the stake itself was arguably not wildly risky, the means by which the steadfast raised that benignant of superior was much so.

Menlo had been an aboriginal investor, earlier Anthropic had a product. By 2024, agelong earlier Claude Code and Claude Mythos, the institution was showing signs of success. It had landed a $4 cardinal woody from Amazon, and was being hotly pursued by VCs, having been founded by erstwhile OpenAI researchers, including siblings CEO Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei. It was a rising-star AI company, as truthful galore startups founded by OpenAI alum inactive are today.

But however Menlo raised the funds was oculus popping. In 2024, the task satellite was conscionable rebounding from the post-pandemic VC winter, with big-money firms similar SoftBank and Tiger Global inactive licking their wounds. No 1 was penning checks for three-quarters of a cardinal dollars.

Menlo structured the bulk of deal, astir $500 cardinal worth, arsenic a peculiar intent vehicle, oregon SPV — a one-off concern entity created to excavation wealth from aggregate sources for a azygous deal. Menlo besides contributed $250 cardinal from its ain money and contributions from Menlo insiders, sources told Forbes astatine the time, bringing the full circular to $750 million.

Since then, AI SPVs person go arsenic commonplace arsenic cockroaches, with Anthropic a peculiar target — truthful overmuch truthful that the AI institution issued a informing past month, calling each unauthorized SPVs and secondary markets claiming to merchantability its banal “scams.”

But for those investors successful Menlo’s authorized 2024 deal, the assertive propulsion paid disconnected handsomely. Menlo went connected to invested successful the company’s Series E and F.

On apical of that, Menlo followed up by launching a $100 cardinal startup money with Anthropic successful 2024, which they cutely named Anthology. That money has since ballooned into superior deployed to day person to $250 million, a root with cognition of the money tells TechCrunch. It has not lone backed 60+ companies (and offered them support, similar entree to Anthropic leaders and credits for Claude), but has produced a fig of returns already. These see Graphite, acquired by Cursor, and Astrix Security, acquired by Cisco.

The money has allowed Menlo to get its digit of the pulse of AI startups, categories and tech, astatine the earliest stages. The VC steadfast has since built a broader rep for AI investing, counting AI stars similar OpenRouter, Higgsfield, Legora, Lovable, OpenEvidence and galore others successful its portfolio.