Blackstone invested an additional $200 million in Anthropic on February 10, 2026, bringing the world's largest alternative asset manager's total stake to approximately $1 billion at the AI startup's current $350 billion valuation. The investment comes less than a year after Blackstone participated in Anthropic's $13 billion Series F round that valued the Claude AI maker at $183 billion, representing a near-doubling of valuation in under twelve months.
The ongoing funding round has exceeded its original $10 billion target and is now expected to raise more than $20 billion amid overwhelming investor demand for exposure to leading generative AI companies. Anthropic has secured at least $1 billion commitments each from Coatue Management, Singapore's GIC, and Iconiq Capital, alongside as much as $15 billion from strategic investors Nvidia and Microsoft. Abu Dhabi's MGX is nearing a deal to join the round, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Blackstone's fresh commitment is being drawn primarily from the firm's retail-focused Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund (BXPE), making Anthropic one of the largest AI investments accessible to retail investors through a major asset manager. The allocation reflects Blackstone's conviction that Anthropic represents a generational investment opportunity in foundational AI infrastructure, similar to early-stage investments in cloud computing leaders during the prior technology cycle.
The $350 billion valuation places Anthropic among the highest-valued private companies in history, trailing only rivals OpenAI and SpaceX in reported private market valuations. The valuation reflects investor confidence in Anthropic's ability to compete with OpenAI and Google in the foundation model market while maintaining differentiation through enterprise-focused features emphasizing safety, reliability, and constitutional AI principles that appeal to regulated industries.
Anthropic recently launched Claude Opus 4.6, its latest flagship model featuring improved reasoning, coding, and complex text generation capabilities. The release coincided with significant market volatility in traditional software stocks, which declined sharply as investors grew concerned that generative AI could automate functions historically driving software industry revenue growth. The software sector has lost approximately $2 trillion in market capitalization since early February, even as AI infrastructure companies have gained value.
The company has dramatically accelerated revenue growth, with run rates increasing from approximately $1 billion at the beginning of 2025 to over $5 billion by August. Anthropic now serves over 300,000 business customers, with Claude Code generating over $500 million in run-rate revenue alone. Usage has increased more than ten times in recent months as enterprises deploy Claude for coding assistance, document analysis, customer service automation, and workflow optimization.
Blackstone's investment strategy positions the firm to benefit from AI adoption across multiple portfolio companies while securing direct exposure to a leading foundation model developer. Earlier in February, a Blackstone Real Estate joint venture secured Anthropic as a tenant for two San Francisco office buildings totaling 484,000 square feet, representing one of the largest office commitments in San Francisco's recent history and signaling Anthropic's intention to expand headcount significantly.
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are taking steps toward eventual initial public offerings, though neither has announced specific timelines. OpenAI has concurrently been in talks to raise as much as $100 billion in another record-breaking funding round, with reported valuations exceeding $800 billion.
