Anthropic's Ode buys Casper Studios to expand enterprise AI services
What's the deal? Ode with AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a joint venture between AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Wall Street firms including Blackstone, is buying AI consultancy Casper StudiosDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → in its first acquisition since launching in July. The San Francisco-based venture is targeting business adoption of Claude, Anthropic's chatbot. The purchase price wasn't disclosed.
What each side brings: Casper Studios, founded four years ago, employs about a dozen technical consultants and says it has worked with Netflix, PepsiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, private equity firms, and hedge funds. Ode employs more than 100 people who often work alongside Anthropic engineers to integrate AI into industries such as accounting and healthcare.
Why now? Corporate executives are struggling to get the most from AI and are wary of rising costs. "You can actually accomplish a lot of what you need…using all of the tooling that Anthropic is building on top of their models," said Chris Taylor, chief executive officer and co-founder of Ode.
The backing: Anthropic created Ode with Blackstone, Hellman & FriedmanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Goldman SachsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Sequoia CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and other firms, which together invested $1.5 billion. Many companies Ode works for are backed by those private equity firms.
The expansion: Earlier this summer, Ode said it would build custom products with IT consulting firms Baker TillyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Citrin CoopermanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, widening its reach into traditional enterprise services.
What's the endgame? Anthropic is growing fast on the strength of its AI coding models, and businesses such as retailer Restoration HardwareDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → are buying Claude to automate finance, project management, and other tasks. But even Anthropic and OpenAI acknowledge that adopting AI isn't easy — hence the need for consultants, or forward-deployed engineers, who work on-site to organise customer data and build automation apps.
The signal: Anthropic is racing OpenAI, which is reorienting as an enterprise-focused firm. OpenAI's own venture, The Deployment Co.Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, has raised $4 billion at a $10 billion valuation from backers including TPG and Brookfield Asset ManagementDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and has bought consulting firms. Thrive Holdings, started by OpenAI investor Thrive Capital, recently raised $2 billion to automate traditional businesses. The pattern is clear: AI leaders are buying up services firms to close the gap between powerful models and messy enterprise reality.
Read more: The Information
Image credit: Ode with Anthropic
