Anthropic closes in on $3.5 billion funding round as investor interest soars

Anthropic is in talks to raise a $3.5 billion funding round, significantly more than the amount previously expected, CNBC has confirmed.

The round would roughly triple the artificial intelligence startup's valuation to $61.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details aren't public. Lightspeed Venture Partners is leading the funding, with participation from General Catalyst and others, the sources said.

The financing, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, signals continued investor demand for top-tier AI companies, even in the face of potential disruption from China's DeepSeek. Anthropic is backed by Amazon and Google, and had initially set out to raise $2 billion, according to a source.

Anthropic declined to comment.

The company's last private market valuation was $18 billion. Amazon has poured $8 billion into the startup.

Anthropic was founded by early OpenAI employees and is the creator of the popular chatbot Claude. Earlier Monday, Anthropic released what it says is its "most intelligent AI model yet." Its so-called hybrid model combines an ability to reason — or stopping to think about complex answers — with a traditional model that spits out answers in real time.

WATCH: Anthropic unveils newest AI model