How Did Menlo Raise an SPV With No Anthropic Financials?

Matt Murphy says Menlo's first special-purpose vehicle for Anthropic nearly got ahead of the firm. A scary 30 to 45 days followed in which he thought Menlo had overcommitted and might not get the round done. Anthropic was supportive, and it also barred the firm from sharing financial information. Investors were being asked into what he put at an $18 billion valuation with product slides and, at most, last year's revenue, and with no forward projections.

State pension funds told him they could not responsibly do that. Three did. He says each of those three has made well over a billion dollars at the last round's valuation. The close was not a one-week sprint. The term sheet was mid-December, the process really started in January, commitments were firmed up by March, and the last close was early April, in two tranches.