Anthropic Backer Menlo Ventures Raises $3B In New Funds To Back AI Startups Across Stages

Menlo Ventures said Tuesday that it raised $3 billion in new capital, the largest new raise in the firm's 50-year history. The Menlo Park, California-based firm will back AI-focused startups across enterprise, healthcare and consumer sectors. The firm highlighted its early investment in Anthropic, which last month overtook OpenAI as the top-valued frontier lab with a $965 billion valuation. Menlo Ventures described its investment in the company's Series C round as its flag-planting moment in a blog post published Tuesday. The firm said it made its first investment in Anthropic in 2023 when the company was pre-product and pre-revenue, and later led its Series D round. The firm announced two new funds: Menlo Ventures XVII for seed and Series A startups and Menlo Inflection IV for growth-stage companies already pulling away from the pack. Anthropic has filed plans for a 2026 IPO with an expected target of $1 trillion or more, which would be the largest exit for one of the firm's portfolio companies by far.