Menlo Enterprises Announce $3 billion in funds on Tuesday, the largest increase in its 50-year history, was largely driven by its AI portfolio, particularly Anthropic. Its stake in the model maker is now worth about $14 billion. Sources told Bloomberg.
To hear the people at Menlo talk about it, they were nervous when they bet the company $750 million on Anthropic in 2024, preemptively leading the model maker’s Series D. At that time, that tour The startup’s value has quadrupled to $18.4 billion.
While the bet itself was arguably not terribly risky, the means by which the company raised this type of capital were riskier.
Menlo was an early investor, before Anthropic had a product. By 2024, long before Cloud Code and Cloud Mythos, the company was showing signs of success. It secured a $4 billion deal from Amazon and has been hotly pursued by venture capital firms, having been founded by former OpenAI researchers, including siblings CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei. It was an up-and-coming AI company, as are many startups founded by OpenAI to date.
But the way Menlo raised the money was remarkable. In 2024, the venture world was just rebounding from the post-pandemic venture capital winter, with big money firms like SoftBank and Tiger Global still licking their wounds. No one was writing checks for three-quarters of a billion dollars.
Menlo structured the bulk of the deal, worth about $500 million, as a special purpose vehicle, or SPV — a one-time investment entity created to pool money from multiple sources for a single deal. Menlo also contributed $250 million from its own fund and contributions from Menlo insiders Forbes said at the timeBringing the total round to $750 million.
Since then, SPACs have become as common as cockroaches, with Anthropic in particular being targeted – so much so that the AI company issued a warning last month, calling all unlicensed SPACs and secondary markets claiming to sell its shares “scams.”
But for those invested in Menlo’s 2024 authorized deal, the aggressive push has paid off handsomely. Menlo went to invest in Series E and F of the company.
Furthermore, Menlo went on to launch a $100 million startup fund with Anthropic in 2024, which they called Anthology. That fund has since swelled to a capital deployment so far approaching $250 million, a source familiar with the fund told TechCrunch. Not only has it backed over 60 companies (and provided them with support, such as access to Anthropic Commanders and credits for Claude), but it has also generated a number of revenues already. These companies include Graphite, which was acquired by Cursor, and Astrix Security, which was acquired by Cisco.
The fund has allowed Menlo to get a pulse on early-stage AI startups, categories and technology. The venture capital firm has since built a broader representation of AI investing, counting AI stars like OpenRouter, Higgsfield, Legora, Lovable, OpenEvidence, and many others in its portfolio.
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