Anthropic, the creator of Claude AI, is approaching a staggering $800 billion valuation amid intense investor interest and growing federal agency adoption of its cybersecurity model, Claude Mythos, despite a Pentagon blacklist. According to a Business Insider report, venture capital firms are circling with investment offers that would more than double the company's current $380 billion valuation from a February funding round led by GIC and Coatue.
Secondary market data from Caplight shows Anthropic's valuation at $688 billion, a 75% increase in three months, tracking growth driven by its Claude Code AI coding product. The company's annualized revenue run rate has skyrocketed to $30 billion from $9 billion at the end of last year, with over 1,000 enterprise customers now spending more than $1 million annually—a figure that doubled in less than two months.
The valuation surge coincides with heightened interest in Claude Mythos, a new model released last week capable of uncovering serious software flaws missed by human researchers. Despite a ban from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in late February—which labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk and blocked its AI from Defense Department contracts—multiple federal agencies are actively testing or inquiring about Mythos. The Commerce Department's Center for AI Standards and Innovation is evaluating the model, and staff from at least three congressional committees have requested briefings on its cyber scanning abilities.
OpenAI has responded directly to Anthropic's move by releasing its own cybersecurity-focused AI model, GPT-5.4-Cyber, on April 15, just one week after Mythos's launch. The model is available to a select group of verified cybersecurity professionals through OpenAI's Trusted Access for Cyber program, with plans to expand from hundreds to thousands of users in coming weeks. OpenAI describes GPT-5.4-Cyber as a "more permissive" version fine-tuned for defensive cybersecurity workflows.
The competition highlights the strategic pivot both companies are making toward enterprise and government cybersecurity markets. Data from payments company Ramp shows nearly one in three U.S. businesses paid for Anthropic's tools in March. The capabilities of these models have drawn concern from top officials, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warning Wall Street leaders to take the risks from Mythos seriously.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon commented on the bank's earnings call, stating that while AI tools like Mythos may help defend companies in the future, they currently create additional vulnerabilities. JPMorgan is testing Anthropic's Mythos preview as part of its cybersecurity efforts. Dimon noted that the model had already found thousands of vulnerabilities in corporate software, indicating "a lot more vulnerabilities need to be fixed."
