2 minute read | September.27.2023
Amazon plans to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic as “part of a broader collaboration to develop the most reliable and high-performing foundation models in the industry.”
Orrick advised Anthropic on the deal, which will provide Amazon a minority ownership stake in Anthropic.
Anthropic is an artificial intelligence safety and research company based in San Francisco that seeks to “create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.”
The company raised $450 million in a Series C funding this year to help develop helpful, harmless and honest AI systems.
Orrick has advised Anthropic on several rounds of fundraising, among other matters, since the company’s founding in 2021.
During the past 12 months alone, Orrick has advised on nearly 250 venture deals involving artificial intelligence or AI-adjacent companies, representing investments of more than $13 billion.
Anthropic and Amazon hailed a collaboration to develop reliable and high-performing foundation models.
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, said Anthropic is excited to use AWS chips in developing foundation models.
“By significantly expanding our partnership, we can unlock new possibilities for organizations of all sizes, as they deploy Anthropic’s safe, state-of-the-art AI systems together with AWS’s leading cloud technology,” he said.
Anthropic also is expanding its support of Amazon Bedrock “based on significant AWS customer demand” for Anthropic’s flagship product, Claude, an AI assistant focused on being helpful, harmless and honest.
“Amazon developers and engineers will be able to build on top of our state-of-the-art models via Amazon Bedrock. This will enable them to incorporate generative AI capabilities into their work, enhance existing applications, and create net-new customer experiences across Amazon’s businesses,” Anthropic said.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said: “We have tremendous respect for Anthropic’s team and foundation models, and believe we can help improve many customer experiences, short and long-term, through our deeper collaboration.”
Orrick’s corporate team advising Anthropic was led by Stephen Venuto, Laura Bloxham, Jay Schau, Andrew Miller, Kasey Winshall, Jason Grube and Sheila Maguire.