AI industry leaders Anthropic and OpenAI have both announced significant strategic moves, launching separate joint ventures focused on delivering enterprise AI services, signaling a new phase in large language model commercialization.
Anthropic unveiled its joint venture plans first, aiming to accelerate the deployment of AI solutions for businesses. The venture's founding partners include prominent Wall Street institutions Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs. It is also backed by a consortium of leading VCs and private equity firms, such as Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green, and Sequoia Capital. According to The Wall Street Journal, this new Anthropic-backed venture is valued at $1.5 billion, with Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman each committing $300 million.
Hours before Anthropic's announcement, Bloomberg reported similar developments from its chief rival, OpenAI. OpenAI is reportedly raising funds for a new venture named "The Development Company," operating along very similar lines but on a larger scale. OpenAI's venture aims to raise $4 billion and is valued at $10 billion, attracting 19 investors including TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital. Notably, there appears to be no overlap in investment between the two ventures' investor bases.
The fundamental logic behind both AI giants' ventures is identical: to leverage alternative asset managers to create new channels for enterprise AI deals. These joint ventures are expected to gain preferred sales access to their investors' portfolio companies, while the investors stand to capture additional value from resulting contracts. Furthermore, the new capital will allow for increased engineering resources, enabling the adoption of the "forward-deployed engineer" (FDE) model, popularized by Palantir. This model involves engineers working closely on-site with clients – for example, with clinicians and IT staff in healthcare – to build and optimize AI tools that seamlessly integrate into existing workflows. This engagement approach will be applied across mid-sized companies in various industries, ensuring AI solutions are tailored to specific operational needs.
These initiatives come as both AI labs are fundraising at an accelerated pace, with potential IPOs on the horizon. OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding at the end of March, pushing its valuation to $852 billion. TechCrunch reported last week that Anthropic is in the final stages of its own funding round, targeting $50 billion in new capital against a $900 billion valuation. Such intensive capital activity underscores the escalating market competition and commercialization drive within the AI industry.