Anthropic teams up with VC firm to offer $100M AI fund • The Register

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Anthropic is setting up a $100 million fund for AI startups with the help of venture capital firm Menlo Ventures.

Termed the Anthology Fund, the nine-figure pool of cash will be doled out to “the next generation of AI startups” Menlo Ventures says. Each startup is eligible to receive an investment of at least $100k, with no mention on the maximum investment a company could pocket. Additionally, startups propped up by the fund will get access to Anthropic’s AI models, $25k in Anthropic credits, and some amount of credits from Menlo Ventures’ firms.

There are some other perks of abstract value, including “access to the Anthropic team for expertise, guidance, and dedicated developer relations support,” networking with other AI companies, quarterly and biannual meetings with Anthropic and Menlo Ventures, and even “fractional workspace access” to Menlo Ventures’ offices.

Anthropic doesn’t stipulate that recipients must use Claude, its competitor to OpenAI’s GPT models. However it does say it assumes startups will want to use Claude, whose latest 3.5 version we looked at last month.

In a statement, Daniela Amodei, president of Anthropic, told The Reg: “Through our partnership with Menlo Ventures and the Anthology Fund, we hope to accelerate the development of groundbreaking AI applications that align with our mission. We’re particularly interested in ventures that leverage AI to enhance human capabilities and productivity in fields such as healthcare, legal services, education, energy, infrastructure, and scientific research.”

Amodei added: “We look forward to working closely with Menlo and the exceptional founders backed by this Fund to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI.”

The application form is pretty standard and asks questions about the company, founders, and the product applicants want to build. There’s even an optional question where Anthropic asks how a startup plans to become profitable, something that is significant given the increasing fears that investments into AI will outstrip the tech’s profitability.

Anthropic’s fund mirrors that of OpenAI, whose plainly named OpenAI Startup Fund has $175 million to go around. The overall trajectory of the two companies is remarkably similar, as Anthropic got billions of dollars from Amazon while OpenAI got its big bucks from Microsoft. Anthropic’s founders include ex-OpenAI employee Dario Amodei, now its CEO, and Daniela Amodei, now its president, as well as several other researchers, all of whom once worked at OpenAI. ®