Menlo Ventures raised $3 billion across two new funds, its largest capital raise in 50 years. The firm will deploy the capital into AI startups from seed through growth stage, citing its early Anthropic investment as a strategic anchor.
Key facts
- $3 billion raised across two new funds.
- Largest capital raise in Menlo Ventures' 50-year history.
- Anthropic valued at $965 billion, overtaking OpenAI.
- Menlo led Anthropic's Series D after Series C investment.
- Anthropic targets 2026 IPO at $1 trillion+ valuation.
Menlo Ventures has raised $3 billion across two new funds, the largest capital raise in its 50-year history, to back AI startups from seed through growth stage. The firm says the new capital will target companies in sectors from enterprise tools to healthcare. According to Crunchbase News
The Menlo Park, California-based firm highlighted its early investment in Anthropic, which last month overtook rival OpenAI as the top-valued frontier lab in the world with a staggering $965 billion valuation. While Menlo Ventures’ investment in Anthropic’s Series C round was not its first bet on artificial intelligence, the firm described it as its “flag-planting moment.”
“We made our first investment in Anthropic in 2023, when the company was pre-product, pre-revenue. By then, ChatGPT was a household name, and many believed the LLM race was already decided. We saw it differently,” the firm wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. “In Dario Amodei and his founding team — arguably the most accomplished researchers in the field — we saw the rare mix of technical depth and clarity of purpose that defines a category leader. We were convinced there was room for another independent foundation model company, that Anthropic was the team to build it, and that an investment in Anthropic could anchor our broader AI strategy.”
The firm went on to lead Anthropic’s Series D the following year. “That early relationship gave us a rare vantage point on the model layer and on the infrastructure, workflows, and application opportunities forming around it,” the firm said this week.
Two Funds, One Strategy
The firm’s new capital is across two funds: Menlo Ventures XVII, earmarked for seed and Series A startups, and Menlo Inflection IV, a growth fund for Series B and later startups that are “already pulling away from the pack and on their way to becoming the breakout names of the AI era.” Along with Anthropic, other notable Menlo Ventures investments over the years include Uber, Roku, Warby Parker, Siri and Gilead Sciences.
Anthropic, which has filed plans for a 2026 IPO, would be the largest exit to date for one of its portfolio companies by far, with an expected IPO target of $1 trillion or more. The $3 billion raise signals that Menlo is betting the AI wave will sustain across stages, not just at the frontier model layer.
Key Takeaways
- Menlo Ventures raised $3B, its largest fund in 50 years, to back AI startups across stages.
- The firm's early Anthropic investment anchors its strategy as Anthropic targets a $1T+ IPO in 2026.
What to watch
Watch for Anthropic's IPO filing details in 2026, which will reveal the exact valuation target and whether Menlo's early bet yields the largest exit in venture history.
Source: news.crunchbase.com
