Google DeepMind's Hassabis held secret stake in $900B rival Anthropic
Demis Hassabis, chief executive of Google DeepMind and a Nobel Prize winner, was an early angel investor in Anthropic, the Financial Times reported. The previously undisclosed stake reveals deep personal ties between the leaders of two fierce AI rivals.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and roughly a dozen researchers who left OpenAI over safety concerns. It has since grown into one of the world's most valuable startups, recently raising funding at a reported $900B valuation.
The investment is striking given that Google DeepMind and Anthropic compete head-to-head in frontier AI — Google building Gemini, Anthropic building Claude.
Google itself has committed an estimated $14B to Anthropic, with plans to invest up to $40B in total. Anthropic has reportedly pledged $200B in spending on Google's cloud services over five years.
Hassabis cofounded DeepMind in 2010. Google acquired it for roughly $400M four years later.
The FT also reported that Hassabis has backed other AI ventures started by former colleagues, including Inflection AI — founded by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa SuleymanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, now chief executive of Microsoft AI.
Former DeepMind researchers have founded more than 12 companies since 2021, collectively raising over $14B. The exodus underscores DeepMind's outsized role as a talent incubator for the broader AI industry.
Read more: Financial Times · Sherwood News · Economic Times
Image credit: Simon Walker
