On Monday, Anthropic announced a joint venture focusing on deploying enterprise AI services. Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs will be founding partners in the new venture, which is backed by a group of VCs, hedge funds, and private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Leonard Green, and Sequoia Capital.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the partnership, reported the new venture was valued at $1.5 billion, which includes a $300 million commitment each from Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman.
The announcement comes just as Anthropic’s chief rival is preparing to make a similar move. Mere hours before the Anthropic announcement, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was raising funds for a new venture called The Development Company, along very similar lines. OpenAI’s venture would operate at a larger scale, raising $4 billion from 19 investors against a $10 billion valuation. Named investors include TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital, with no apparent overlap in investment between the OpenAI venture and Anthropic’s competitor.
The overall logic of the two ventures is the same: raising money from alternative asset managers to create new channels for enterprise AI deals. The ventures will presumably get preferred sales access to their investors’ portfolio companies, while the investors will capture more value from any resulting contracts.
The new capital will also allow more engineering resources to be devoted to each individual deal, embracing the forward-deployed engineer (FDE) model popularized by Palantir. This model involves engineers working directly with clients to build custom solutions that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.
As Anthropic put it in its announcement: “An engagement might begin with the company’s engineering team sitting down with clinicians and IT staff to build tools that fit into the workflows that staff already use… Engagements like this will run across mid-sized companies across industries, each shaped by the people closest to the work.”
Background on Anthropic and OpenAI
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers who left over disagreements about the direction of AI safety. The company has focused on building reliable, interpretable AI systems, with a particular emphasis on safety research. Its flagship product, Claude, is a conversational AI assistant that competes directly with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Anthropic has raised substantial funding from investors such as Google, Spark Capital, and Salesforce Ventures.
OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization, later transitioned to a capped-profit model to raise the enormous capital needed for training large models. The company launched ChatGPT in November 2022, sparking a global AI boom. OpenAI is now widely considered the leader in generative AI, with products ranging from GPT-4 to DALL-E and Codex. Its valuation has soared past $800 billion following a $122 billion funding round in March 2026.
The rivalry between the two labs has intensified as both race to capture the enterprise market. While OpenAI has focused on broad consumer adoption and enterprise API access, Anthropic has positioned itself as a safer, more transparent alternative for businesses concerned about AI risks.
Enterprise AI market context
The enterprise AI services market is projected to grow exponentially over the next decade. Businesses across industries — from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and retail — are eager to deploy AI to automate processes, generate insights, and improve customer experiences. However, many companies lack the internal expertise to build and integrate custom AI solutions. The joint venture model addresses this gap by providing dedicated engineering resources and pre-built integrations tailored to specific industries.
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are now leveraging their strong relationships with alternative asset managers, who control vast portfolios of companies. By offering preferred access to these portfolio companies, the AI labs can accelerate adoption while securing long-term, high-value contracts. For the asset managers, the ventures offer a way to capture value from the AI transformation of their holdings.
The forward-deployed engineer (FDE) model is central to this strategy. Pioneered by Palantir, FDEs work on-site with clients to understand their unique challenges and then build custom software solutions. For AI, this means deploying models that are fine-tuned on proprietary data and integrated into existing IT infrastructure. The model reduces friction and increases the likelihood of successful deployment.
Both ventures are likely to compete aggressively for talent, with FDEs being a scarce resource. AI engineers with experience in deploying enterprise systems command high salaries, and the demand is only increasing. The ventures will need to offer attractive compensation and career development opportunities to attract and retain top engineers.
Financial details and IPO speculation
The joint ventures come at a time of frenzied fundraising for both AI labs. In late March 2026, OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $852 billion. TechCrunch reported last week that Anthropic is in the final stages of its own funding round, seeking $50 billion of new funding against a $900 billion valuation. These astronomical numbers reflect investor belief that AI will be the defining technology of the coming decades.
IPO speculation is also heating up. Both companies are reportedly considering going public within the next two years, though no official filings have been made. The joint ventures could help demonstrate stable, recurring revenue streams to potential public market investors. By locking in multi-year contracts with large enterprise clients, the ventures provide visibility into future earnings that Wall Street prizes.
However, the regulatory landscape remains uncertain. Governments worldwide are grappling with how to regulate AI, with concerns ranging from job displacement to algorithmic bias. The European Union's AI Act is already in effect, and the US is considering federal legislation. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have advocated for sensible regulation, but the outcome could impact the profitability of their enterprise ventures.
The involvement of major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Blackstone adds credibility and political heft. These firms have extensive experience navigating regulatory environments and can help the AI labs manage compliance risks.
What this means for the AI industry
The simultaneous launch of these two joint ventures marks a new phase in the commercialization of AI. Rather than selling software licenses or API access, AI labs are now forming deep partnerships with financial intermediaries to embed their technology into the fabric of the global economy. This model could become the standard for other AI companies seeking to scale their enterprise offerings.
Competition between Anthropic and OpenAI is likely to intensify, with each venture vying for the same set of large corporate clients. The ventures may also spur consolidation among smaller AI startups that cannot match the scale of these well-funded initiatives.
For customers, the ventures offer a single point of contact for AI deployment, reducing the complexity of working with multiple vendors. However, there are risks of vendor lock-in and reduced competition. Regulators may need to ensure that these ventures do not stifle innovation or create unfair advantages.
The FDE model also raises questions about data privacy and security. Engineers working on-site will have access to sensitive corporate data, and both Anthropic and OpenAI will need to implement robust safeguards. The ventures are likely to include contractual provisions around data handling and model governance.
Overall, Monday's announcements signal that enterprise AI is entering a new era of maturity. The joint ventures provide the capital, expertise, and distribution channels needed to bring AI to every industry. As Anthropic and OpenAI continue to invest in these initiatives, the impact on businesses worldwide will be profound.
Source: TechCrunch News