Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei (left) with Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy last year.
Menlo Ventures
Anthropic was too expensive, too early, and had no revenue. Menlo Ventures invested anyway, and that gamble is now worth an estimated $14 billion.When partner Matt Murphy met cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei on a five-minute Zoom meeting in early 2023, Anthropic was pre-revenue and had not publicly launched its model. The $4.1 billion valuation it sought was far above Menlo's usual venture range, and the company was still too early for its growth fund."There was definitely some heartburn within the firm," Murphy told Business Insider in an interview where he shared the investment's origin story. (He could not discuss the IPO or Anthropic's current financials because the company is in an SEC-mandated quiet period.)Even with OpenAI already valued at $29 billion in 2023, Murphy thought the market had room for a formidable rival. After just a brief Zoom call, he walked away convinced that Amodei could build the Pepsi to OpenAI's Coke."I was blown away by his energy, his description of what they had built and why they thought that there was room in the market for another player," Murphy said. "We just had to be in this company."As Anthropic prepares to go public later this year, Menlo Ventures will be one of the biggest winners, turning an estimated $1 billion stake into around $14 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. The firm has invested in every round since 2023 and also launched the Menlo Anthology Fund in partnership with Anthropic to back early-stage AI startups.Menlo's bet on Anthropic has been transformative for the 50-year-old firm, which has long been respected in Silicon Valley for wins like Uber and Roku but was not usually mentioned in the same breath as the industry's most prestigious names.
